


When the Lamb Goes Silent, but Within One's Own Mind Can Still Hear the Screams of Them"

by UnknownMusing



Series: "When the Fall Comes" [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Based on Dante's Inferno, Imagery in the form of Memory Palace, Injured and healing Hannibal, Letters and Sweet Williams, Loads of OC's being killed, M/M, Pining Hannibal, Sexual Content, Started a long while ago and just did something, Violence, emotional angst, fake death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 21:04:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17393696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnknownMusing/pseuds/UnknownMusing
Summary: After the fall, events happen leading to Hannibal becoming separated from the man he loves with all his heart - Will Graham - and so he begins a journey like Dante did for the woman he fall for, Hannibal travels through the metaphorical inferno until he reaches his Beloved.





	When the Lamb Goes Silent, but Within One's Own Mind Can Still Hear the Screams of Them"

** Prologue - The Fall, Separation and a Re-Birth  **

_"_ _See this is all I ever wanted for you. For the both of us."_

Sea-bluish green eyes, gaze upwards into maroon eyes with both their breathing coming labored gasps as both men stand next to the edge of the eroding bluff. Blood coats their clothes and faces, while laying spread-eagled on the courtyard patio lays the body of **_"The Great Red Dragon"_** dead to the world.

His abdomen slashed open - that had allowed for torrent of fresh blood to spill - and the ragged tear on his throat, ripped by teeth - sharp and deadly ** _. Predator's teeth._**

_"It's beautiful."_

A whisper, almost to Hannibal's mind like an admission of **_Love_** makes his heart skip a double beat, feeling Will gently lay the side of his bloodied cheek on his chest with hand coming up to hold his arm tightly.

There both dying, wounded so greatly that the chance of surviving is not possible and in slow motion, their bodies twist in the air as they gently fall over the edge of the eroding bluff into the air.

Heading straight downwards to the rolling crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

The wind rushes by them, whipping their hair about and clothes, while Hannibal Lecter braces for the impact that is soon to come.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Both their bodies smack the choppy white waters with such force, it causes them to become separated immediately by the intense pounding wave action as Hannibal, in final, weak desperation - like that of a starving man - tries to grab Will's arm.

 ** _Mother Nature_** though, intervenes like she was trying to keep him away from the young man by hurtling him backwards towards some rocks where his back soon slams straight into them sending the most intense, violent pain shooting through every part of his body at the sametime he feels part of his spine snapping in a certain place.

He doesn't know where. The blackness is coming in fast, covering his vision and before he is dragged away from deadly rocks by the pounding waves is that Will Graham - the man who he loved and had loved - is gone due to cruel turn of **_Fate_** taking the young man away from him.

The last thought going through his head, before he sinks into unconscious state is...

_"So, ends the **Wrath of the Lamb,** who is no longer among us." _

_\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_"JACK, OVER HERE!!!?"_

A voice.

Shouting, reaches Hannibal's ears muffled though like he is still underwater as he weakly digs one hand into soft still wet beach sand followed by the other digging into it as well then begins to haul himself slowly to the dry part of the sandy beach, every part of his body and muscles screaming in protest because of what he is making his damaged and shattered body to do.

A soft thump. He collapses onto the dry sand starting to cough violently up sea-water and blood, sending spasms of more pain through his already weakened, battered and broken body as crimson petals land onto the golden sand covering it in them.

It glints in the early morning light of the **_Dawn_** sun rising over the horizon, followed by a shadow blocking out the light as he sees it is Jack Crawford, who kneels down next to him so they’re both eye-level then a hand reaches out, touching the top of his head to reassure him everything was going to be alright for now.

A sigh comes from the large black man, followed by asking him a question that makes Hannibal stare at him with widened maroon eyes then before he can stop himself tears form heavily in his eyes, brimming over the edges starting to run heavily down his cheeks.

" _Where's Will?"_

_\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

** PART 1: **

** "Walking the Path Alone, Because You’re Not Here, My Beloved."  **

** Hannibal's P.O.V: **

_"Now, try again. You can do this. Just one foot in front of the other."_

Will Graham - the man I loved and had loved - is gone, lost to the rolling Atlantic ocean that had separated us both from each-other and now, only part of my **_Memory Palace_** wandering the halls of it with my little sister Mischa.

Will, had died and I was alive because of Jack Crawford's intervention to keep me alive then gripping the walking bars with both hands, begin to walk down the aisle that been formed by them.

Outside the leaves on the Japanese Maple, small topiary hedges and Silver birch are turning various shades of soft golden yellow, rich dark purple and warm-hued orange implying Winter would be soon arriving, while because it was coming up to December people would be getting ready buying presents for relatives, grandkids or even their own children.

I reach the middle, stopping with my chest rising and falling under the grey long sleeved grey shirt as I breathe heavily feeling sweat that has formed trickle down my spine in small bead - like a rain droplet going down a window - then try to place one foot in front of the other when my legs choose to give out underneath me.

The walking bars rattle, making a soft tinging noise in the process and slight pain radiates up my spine forcing me to grit my teeth with one hand digging into the carpet fibers in front of me. In my mind **_Imaginary Will_** speaks.

**Get up, Hannibal. Come on, place your hands back on the bars. That's it, walk slowly forwards one step at a time.**

With his enthusiasm in trying to help me, I manage to get back up gripping both bars tightly with my hands then begin to work to the end, where the Orderly for the Criminally Insane, who helps with one injured and needing to walk again, waits for me.

By the time, I reach the end of it, I'm soaking with sweat - which is still running down my body and seeping through the prison clothes I wear - and knowing I must test myself, let go of the bars.

I step away from them, walking forwards a few steps and consider it for now an achievement of recovering. If Will, were here he would probably smile softly at me, like had used to and the realization hits me - I missed Will.

Everything about him - his smile, the way he laughed and the other little nuances about him.

And his sea-bluish green eyes, which were one thing I would never be able to forget about him.

"You've done well today. Though you do need to do more." The Orderly, says making me lift my head up to look at them and nod silently in reply, not wasting my breath speaking any words to them.

Then they continue. "You know your rather quiet, Hannibal Lecter. I expected more...you know to be like the rest of the wacko's in this stinking place."

As people knew, especially Jack Crawford, I did not tolerate the **_Rude_** and glare at the young naive Orderly calmly saying, my next words.

"Would you prefer if I rip your tongue out and swallow it whole?"

They neither flinch nor even blanch at the words I have just said. Instead, stand there smiling in certain way and steps close to me, causing me to take a step backwards - away from them.

I wasn't fully healed of course. If they attacked me, I would not be able to fight back.

"You could try, Dr. Lecter. But you’re at a disadvantage with your broken, shattered body that is starting to heal." They say, almost backing me up against the walking rails as they do so. "I could...if I was let say provoked by you, break every damm bone in your body until you’re either confined to wheelchair or hospital bed."

Both of us stare at each-other, maroon looking into dark hazel with gold flecks around the edges soon shuddering slightly at the fact at this very moment in his eye's I'm the vulnerable **_Prey_** and he to mine the **_Predator._**

"Take me back to my cell. Were done for the today."

"Of course. Whatever the good Dr. Lecter wants, his wishes will be granted."

I step away from him, moving out the way. Just not to be near this Orderly, who could easily hurt me in any way he liked.

"Sarcasm makes you rude, Crom."

The Orderly, seems surprised I know his name only to soon compose himself with a face of stone and heads to the door himself.

"Well, you would know something about that wouldn't you." Crom whispers, bending his lips down to my ear.

 This makes me flinch away from his hot, sickly breath on my cheek and keep my face turned to one side, staring out of the large windows at the first snowflake starting to spiral downwards.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Where does the difference between the Past and Future come from?**

**Mine. Before you and after you.**

A **_Memory._**

Uzzi Gallery.

The Painting by Botticelli.

Meeting Will again, after the certain events - the killing of Detective Pazzi, like how the man's ancestor was and for Will, being flung off the train by Chiyoh because she had worried he was going to kill me.

Sitting on the bench, quelling the urge to reach over and place my hand over his to comfort him. I had instead kepted it holding the drawing pad, listening to him talk to me then we both got up at the sametime and headed out into the courtyard.

What happened next, could not be stopped and remember watching in slow motion as Will, was flung backwards due to the impact of the bullet from Chiyoh's sniper rifle from the corner of my eye.

"Hannibal?"

A voice says, interrupting the **_Memory,_** which fades away to reveal the ceiling of the large prison cell. Turning my face on the pillow, I see it is Alana who had called my name.

Standing there behind the glass, wearing a striped white and black suit with soft cream trousers making me sigh softly, swinging my legs off the bed and placing my feet into the slip on Velcro shoes then get up, slowly.

"Alana, what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" I ask her, heading over to the large table limping slightly and pulling the stool out from underneath it sit down with a slight wince, which she notices.

"Were just going to have a normal conservation, Hannibal." She replies, pulling the chair from the writing desk and placing it down then she sits, crossing one delicate leg over the other.

"Normal conservation, Alana. What would amount to that? Me, telling...you the painful truth of that night. That fateful night."

"Yes, that is more accurately the answer what I want the answer to what happened that night, Hannibal? Why won't you talk about? What is it that has placed you into silence when you’re asked about this?"

**Tell her a Lie, Hannibal. Spin a web of gold so thick, so she cannot not see through it.**

**_Imaginary Will,_** whispers in my ear, his breath hot against my cheek as he stands behind me.

"I rather not discuss it, if you don't mind." I say, noticing how she simmers with slight anger underneath the surface and calmly leans forward saying her next words carefully.

"Are you sure? F.B.I forensics, found evidence...of sexual activity in the bedroom of your safe house. Did you, Hannibal, decide to have sex with Will before the **_Dragon_** came?"

My heart skips a beat at these words, while the ** _Memory_** comes to the forefront of my mind.

_Hannibal, coming out of the shower to get rid of the dust; grime and sweat with large towel wrapped around his waist sees Will is sitting on the edge of the bed, staring into distant space then concern rising for the young man, he goes over to get his medical kit from the bureau._

_Looking back at the young man, he sighs softly saying the words quietly knowing Will might not hear him say them._

_" **Myilamis,** come back to me. Don't go into yourself....without me." _

"What would like to know, Alana?" I ask her, causing her to rise up out the chair and step closer to the glass, glaring at me through it.

"Dammit, Hannibal is this just a game to you? You have another Court Case, coming to discuss your **_Fate,_** so answer the...goddamm question." She hisses, while I begin to wonder how large can I weave this web of mine to keep her blind once more - the **_Arachnid_** , who had managed to bite back - until she sees through it.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** PART 2 - Meeting with an Old Serpent and the First Letter  **

** Hannibal's P.O.V: **

Stepping into the large room, for my walking exercises I expect to see the Orderly Chrom standing at his usual spot waiting for me. However, instead when I lift my head I see someone else entirely standing at the large windows with his hands in his suit trousers pockets then speaks to me, after the door has been closed behind me.

"Hello, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. My name is Dr. Astreolies Ocrates, I'm been appointed as your new Orderly, ever since Mr. Chrom has sadly to say dearly departed his job to elope with woman."

I cannot speak.

What this older man, has just said makes my heart feel lighter.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Would you like a drink?" He asks me, indicating to come fully into the room as I hear the door shut behind me, leaving me alone with the older man then I step forwards, just as it happens.

Suddenly, high-pitched screaming - like an animal being slaughtered - pierces the air around me, I look around trying to find the source of it and can feel myself starting to panic heavily - having not done ever since Mischa had been killed by those starving men right in front of my very eye's - trembling heavily.

**_Hannibal!!!? Hannibal!!!?_ **

**_Imaginary Will,_** shouts my name reaching out to cup both my cheeks - in reality though I can feel it's Dr. Ocrates, doing this to me to ground me, while my breath comes in labored gasps then he speaks calmly to me.

"Can you hear me, Hannibal Lecter? I'm going to say a word. Do you understand?"

Weakly, all I can do is nod silently to the older man and hear him give a small satisfied " _Hmm"_ then calmly speaks the word.

**_"Lamb."_ **

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

In my **_Mind Palace,_** every one of the mirrors in the many rooms and hallways explode outwards sending glass fragments in all directions as the screaming of my **_Prey_** and some of Will's becomes louder filling my ears with such noise and clarity.

It's deafening to hear as I'm transported to one place, I don't want to see again.

The Night of the **_Great Red Dragon._**

 

_"See. Watch what transpired."_

_I'm being forced to watch the scene of the Memory of the **"Night of the Great Red Dragon"** feeling myself being held back by strong arms as the **Old Serpent** hisses in my ear, wrapping its scaly body around my own - constricting me slowly. _

_"I'm going to film your death, Dr. Lecter as you become one with_ **the Dragon."**

_I hear myself gulping heavily, chest rising and falling with each labored breath I take. My own life-force, spilling through the gaps in my fingers, while laying propped up against the piano leg._

_Will, standing with the wine glass still in his hand and remember flicking my gaze to him, which the Dragon had noticed at the time._

_How I had been distracted at the time._

_What had happened next, I can never forget with harsh clarity._

_Will, being stabbed in the cheek as harshly as the **Dragon,** had lifted him clean off the carpet with the force of his strength then flung him out onto the patio, leaving me propped up against the piano trying to figure out what to do. _

_Then finally making a decision, that would cost me further injury maybe even **Death** straight away. _

_I shudder in the grip of the **Old Serpent,** who I can feel with each passing moment of the **Memory** tightening more around my body._

_"No, more.....No, more....Please."_

_I whimper to the **Old Serpent** , feeling it increase its constriction until my back arches with my head tilting backwards to stare up at the Heavens of the **Memory Palace** \- where the stars spread outwards like a path, but are starting to fade away - then a cracking noise echoes around me, when my ribcage finally breaks apart. _

_The action returning me to the real world._

(TIME SKIP)

Coming out of the Memory of that Night is like I'm raising out of water or being pulled out of it by someone, slowly fluttering my eyes open to reveal the sight of Dr. Ocrates, holding my wrist to check my pulse then feel I'm sitting in one of the armchair, near the fireplace in the room.

"What happened?" I ask, voice suddenly hoarse and weak-sounding like I had just done a lot of screaming at some point.

He doesn’t answer me, just stands up and heads over to the drinks cabinet leaving me sitting there in the armchair chest rising and falling slowly as I even out my breathing until my heart resumes its normal pace then settling back into the armchair, lay my head to one side staring at the fireplace.

It had been lit at some point, during when I had lost time. The flames of it, gently flickering and wavering reminding me of the Fire-dancers of Greece - spinning the batons of flames to create shapes with them - and outside, see the sky has turned the various shades of orange; yellow and purple with blackness bleeding into those colours.

"Here" Dr. Ocrates says, handing me a glass of brandy to drink, which I take from him noticing how his gaze has landed on the ring on my ring finger - a golden wedding band. The same golden wedding band that Will had worn around his own ring finger.

**\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

_"Hannibal? Come here."_

_"What is it, Will?"_

_The golden wedding band is slipped off his own ring  finger, while my hand is taken hold of by my wrist and he calmly, slips it onto my ring finger then his hand moves, coming up to cradle the back of my head._

_I'm pulled down for a breathless kiss, with him pulling me onto the bed and up onto his lap where his hand cradling the back of my head starts to sift through my shower-damp hair._

_Our mouths begin to move against each-others, him soon laying down with me straddling him, legs either side of his waist then lifts my hips up, slipping the towel wrapped around my waist off still kissing me breathlessly._

_Our tongues entwine inside and outside our mouth's, with saliva either being exchanged or trickling down the sides of them then he let's go of mine, seeing my flushed face and pupils expanded with lips swollen from the kissing._

_He bends his head down, causing me to tilt my head backwards bringing one hand up to cradle the back of his head feeling him with his free hand, fingers coated in lube spearing me open - prepping me - at the sametime his moist, warm tongue swirls around one of my nipple's then his teeth bite down, hard enough to draw blood._

_I cry out his name, breaking the silence of the bedroom when he does it at the sametime clenching my thighs involuntary around his fingers when he presses against the wee nub within me that sends white sparks flashing across my eyes._

_Like comet trails._

_I'm flipped by him. Soon feeling him get over and hitching my thighs around his waist then presses inwards, filling me._

_Spreading me open - like when one of those flowers spreads it petals at night to attract the moths and insects of the Night._

_My back arches of the bed cover, which I grip tightly for support and shuddering fully, look up at the mirror in the ceiling seeing my expression of ecstasy and pleasure then he begins to move, undulating his hips back and forth._

_Spearing me, with each thrust he gives within my body at a hard, fast pace because both know we don't have enough time. The **Dragon** was coming, because he felt **Betrayed** by me. _

_It is brutal, chaotic and unexplainably something that should have happened before the events I do not want to remember shattered the teacup - that already has been shattered so many times already._

_So, I just succumb. Succumb to what Will, is now making me feel as everything dissolves into a haze of pleasure, ecstasy and finally.... **Love.**_

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Where do you come from, Dr. Ocrates?" I ask the older man, sipping the glass of brandy listening to the crackle of the fire in the fireplace, with the faint strains of " ** _If Love Now Reigned"_** composed by **_Henry the Eighth in 1510_** coming from the radio.

"Hmm, curious are we? I was born on the island of Thasos to a slightly wealthy family, sort of like your family though no siblings to play or interact with." He replies, taking a sip of his own brandy and lowering it, swirls the amber liquid around the glass.

The liquid gleaming faintly in the firelight. On the coffee table, between the two armchairs is letter addressed to me and placing my own glass down, pick it up seeing it has been forwarded by the F.B.I Head of the B.S.U - Jack Crawford - to me.

"Would you like some privacy?" He asks me, seeing how I'm trembling because it is Will's handwriting and gulping down saliva, lift my head to look up at him seeing he has gotten up out of the chair.

"If you don't mind."

He says nothing else, just walks past me lightly squeezing my shoulder to reassure me everything will be alright and he will be around if I need him then go back to look at the letter then opening it, begin to read.

_Dear Hannibal....._

_Do you remember the first sonnet Dante wrote in **La Vita Nuova,** where he describes his strange dream of Beatrice Portinari.? Do you know how it goes?_

****

**_"Allegro  mi sembrava  Amor tenendo_ **

**_Mea core in mano , e ne le braccia avea._ **

**_Madonna  involta in un drappo dormendo._ **

**_Poi la svegliava, e d'esto core ardendo_ **

**_Lei paventosa umilmente pascea_ **

**_Appreso gir lo ne vedea piangendo."_ **

_"The first three hours of the night were almost spent_

_The time that every stars shines down on us_

_When **Love** appeared to me so suddenly_

_That I still shudder in at the memory._

_Joyous Love seemed to me, while he held_

_My heart within his hands, and in his arms_

_My lady lay asleep wrapped in a veil_

_He woke her then and trembling and obedient_

_She ate that burning heart out his hand;_

_Weeping I saw him then depart from me."_

_By the time you read this letter, I'll be gone and nothing but the Shade in your Memory Palace who will haunt you._

_Yours and forever will be,_

_Will Graham_

****

His voice echoes with clarity, words flowing into my ears and tears form in my eyes, brimming over the edges to fall over them with the letter soon slipping out of my hands to fall onto the floor as I get up out the chair, heading over to the sliding door slip it open to step out into the garden.

It is cool, not cold outside and wrapping my arms around myself allow for the tears to fall and plip onto the paved courtyard for the garden.

**Now do you see?**

**_Imaginary Will,_** whispers in my ear wrapping his arms around my waist and holding me close to his warm, body. Even though he was no longer among the living, it felt like he was here and actually holding me.

"Yes"

**Now do you feel?**

Lifting my head, I see coming out of the darkened tree line two creatures stepping onto the pure, white snow which had fallen - the **_Ravenstag,_** his **_Creature_** and mine, the **_Wendigo_**.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** PART 3 - Memories Floating Like Dust in One's Mind as One's Mind Palace Begins to Slowly Distengrate within their Own Mind and Midnight Interrogation by the Old Serpent **

** Hannibal's P.O.V: **

"Thank you, Denise."

The large, female orderly doesn’t say anything after I thanked for delivering what is evidently when the Court announcement will be and leaves, shutting the large double doors behind her leaving me alone then walking over to the post-box, open it taking out the bulky envelope of the Court Summons and close it.

I head over to the large table in the center of the room, moving my sketches of different places and people then sitting down, open it take the sheets out reading through them noticing again it seems Freddie Lounds is among the Witnesses. Probably with some cockamamie evidence made up to make sure I stayed in this prison permanently.

For the Defense, it is Dr. Ocrates who has placed his name down to defend me.

What did want to achieve from all of this?

Just who was he really?

**We can't trust him. He's planning something.**

**_Imaginary Will,_** whispers while I lower the Court Summons placing them flat on the table and flick my gaze straight up to little red dot in the far corner of the large prison - the one that watches every move I make in this confined space - then picking up the sheets, tear it half and once, again keeping my eyes on it.

**You've really done it now. Alana, is going too pissed off with you, Hannibal.**

I give small _"Hmm"_ in reply, hearing doors slamming wide open followed by high heels clacking on the polished floor then finally coming into the visiting area.

"Hello, Alana." I say, still keeping gaze on the little red dot in the corner of the room and not her face, knowing it be filled with anger and shock.

"Hannibal, what game are you playing?" She asks me, in a certain tone - which implies _"Look at me."_ \- And tearing my gaze away from then get up off the stool, going around the large table.

I pad forwards, slowly with each step echoing off the polished floor until I'm right in front of the glass then slam a fist - clenched - on it, causing her to jump harshly. Eyes widening, showing fear to me only for a brief time until she composes herself once more.

**Iron Maiden, wouldn't you say, Hannibal. She has placed her battle armor on like an Amazon Warrior Queen.**

"I could ask you the same thing. But you'll want some answers to that fateful....night, I won't give them to you."

"Why not? I have you in this cell. I can easily break you to get to the answers."

**She's trying to coerce you, threatening you. You can't be broken, Hannibal.**

"You don't deserve answers, Alana. Even if you break me, with your variety of techniques so I give you them, I won't give you them." I reply, moving away from glass and heading back over to the table.

Stopping though mid-way, when I decide to say the last words, looking at her over my shoulder.

"You should've of stayed blind, when you had the chance to."

\------------------------------------------------------------

**Hannibal, open your eyes.**

_Fluttering my eyes open, I see both me and **Imaginary Will** are sitting in the woods that spread around my birthplace and turning my face too look at it, see in the far distance the starting of my family home beginning to crumble slowly into dust._

_My **Memories** it seems are falling apart and by this rate, there'll be none of them left to remember. _

**This means I'm going to disappear into inky, black waters never to be seen again doesn’t it?**

_He asks me, making me tear my gaze away from my family home to look at him, getting up out the leather armchair and the scene quickly changes, with me now holding the curved dagger in my hand - wearing the bloodied white shirt, with blood trickling down the side of my lip._

_"Don't make me relive this **Memory,** Will." I say to quell him from making me feel this **Memory** again._

**_Imaginary Will,_ ** _says nothing to me and pushes me forwards into **Memory Will,** with my hand moving on its own accord ripping through the fleshy part of his abdomen to allow for a gush of not blood....but instead **Sweet Williams** to fall out as the floor opens up beneath me. _

_I fall slowly downwards, descending into the deeply abyss made by the gaping maw that had been the kitchen floor as the flowers, spiral past me like snowflakes dancing in the air then fireflies begin to appear from the darkness, flying upwards._

_I soon land among a bed of made up of **Sweet Williams,** hearing a whimper - young and childlike - making me turn my face to look at the sight of young me, whimpering after Mischa's bone's left to the blizzard by the starving soldiers beside the fountain after they had dragged away from screaming for older brother followed soon by the thud of an axe._

**How did your Sister, taste?**

**_The Viper -_ ** _Bedelia De Maurier - hisses from somewhere in the darkness, before slinking off into the foliage near the large bed of the **Sweet Williams** as hands reach out of the ground, beneath me pulling me under into the soil as the last sight I see is Imaginary Will going over to young me and a alive Mischa, embracing both in a gentle, loving hug. _

_I pulled further down by the hands, which begin to bury me into the moist, damp rich soil where the **Lair of the Dragon** lays in the core of my **Memory Palace's** darkest **Memories.**_

_The one’s, which have Monsters of their own in them._

**\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

 

Waking up, I lay there staring up at the darkened ceiling of my cell - three plain blue walls and one glass one, with appropriate air holes - tears filling my eyes, but thankfully not spilling over.

Sitting up, swinging my legs off the bed and getting up head to the bathroom - opening the door hidden cleverly within the wall - then stepping inside, flick the light on - the light bulb flickering until becoming dimly bright - and close the door behind me.

The starchy prison uniform, I slip off to drop onto the tiled floor followed by the plain white tank-top and the boxers then turn my gaze to look at myself in the bathroom mirror above the sink. The bullet wound scar from the **_Great Red Dragon_** , shaped like the **_North Star_** close to my left side; the scar under my chin from Jack, hitting me with one of the torture hooks from the collection of Medieval Torture devices in the Palazzo Caponi and its Library along with the scar close to my ankle from it as well and last, but not least the worse of them - the **_Verger Brand_** of my back, that Mason Verger's lackey Cordell Doemlling had given me.

**Your scars, make you who you are, Hannibal. You can't get rid of them.**

**"** No, I can't." I whisper in reply, though more to myself I'm saying the words in the empty bathroom.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The luke-warm water rushes down my naked body, making me tilt my head backwards into the spray with my eyes closed to allow it to run down the hollow of my throat towards my hips, trickling down the inside of my thighs then some of it, plipping off onto the tiled shower floor, meandering into drain going around and around like a tiny whirlpool.

A **_Memory,_** comes to my mind. The one, where me and Will had discussed our own families and background.

_"Tell me about your, Mother."_

_"Some lazy physcharity, Dr. Lecter. Low hanging fruit."_

_"I suspect that fruit is on a high branch. Very difficult to reach."_

_So was my Mother. Never knew her."_

_I look at Will, seeing how he rather quickly change the subject as the fire in the fireplace gently crackles and dances in the hearth, while outside snow is laying on the ground with some still falling downwards - spiraling in the crisp, night air._

_"Tell me about your, Mother. Let's start there."_

_Quid pro quo. He wanted some background information and sighing softly, begin to tell him omitting some details because I didn't want to tell him everything - the losing of Mischa, my first sight of Lady Murasaki and how she had fallen in love with me and killing the people who murdered my little sister._

_He wasn't ready for that, just yet._

Fluttering my eyes open, the Memory Conservation fading away of that meeting in my office, switch the shower off allowing silence to fill my ears with the beads of water starting to drip off my wet body, making small ripples in the remaining water on the shower floor reminding oddly of the time when Abigail - brave, strong and easy to train Abigail Hobbs - had dropped the teacup, allowing it to shatter to tiny pieces on the kitchen floor.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stepping out of the steamed up shower, I pick up the golden wedding band off the counter to slip it back onto my ring finger and reach for the shaving kit, unrolling it. I shave the beard, calmly and methodically, feeling a slight sting when I nick myself causing a bead of blood to form among the shaving cream. I watch it forming, soon to lightly trickle down the hollow of my throat - staining it crimson.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Afterwards, coming out of the bathroom with a large towel wrapped around my waist using one of the smaller towels to dry my hair pause half-way through when I sense a presence watching me through the glass.

Who was watching me from the shadows?

Who were they?

And what did they want?

Turning my face, I see only the darkened sitting visitor area with the lamps dimmed low. There was something that didn't feel right, so walk up to the glass placing my hand flat on it - it is cold, like when the frost forms on a cold, Winter morning delicate frond or fern-like shapes.

The main heating unit for the all of the **_B.S.H.C.I._** must be not working at the moment, hence why the glass felt cold because the heating wasn't on. It made me wonder had the other Inmates in the lower levels, noticed it as well as they tried to sleep in their darkened cells with the minimum amount of light to comfort them if they had **_Nightmares._**

Lowering my hand from the glass, I head over to the bed going to pull the duvet cover back when I stiffen at a particular scent which hits my nostrils - seeping through the air holes.

_"Did you just smell me?"_

_"Difficult to avoid. That smells like something of a ship of a bottle."_

_"It's what I keep getting for Christmas."_

_"Then I change the aftershave, Dear Will."_

I quiver slightly, trying to keep myself calm in the situation willing at the sametime for my heart to stop thudding against my ribcage, wait for the figure standing in the darkness to speak to me.

 _"Brings back **Memories** doesn't it?" _Dr. Ocrates, whispers - his voice slithering through the air holes like wispy, smoky snakes which reach out towards me - stepping out of the shadows, while in his hands holds small bottle of the aftershave which Will had used to wear.

Before I'm even thinking what I'm doing, I walk up to the air holes placing my hand through one of them gulping down saliva that is building up in my throat. He watches with hidden interest and something else, which tells me I may be up against a more violent **_Predator_** than myself.

"Give it to me, please?"

He steps more closely, placing the small bottle in my outstretched hand and going to pull it back, feel him grab it by the wrist stilling me in moving away from as far as possible. He was registering my pulse again.

_"Did you love him?"_

_"I can't answer that question."_

_"Did he make you feel, Hannibal Lecter? Feel like you were losing control, when he took you that night in your Safe-house on a bed with silken black sheets with gold ferns on them and the pillows with **Sweet William** petals on a white."_

**There is no way this Old Serpent should know this. There was no-one else there that night, only us.**

I pull my hand away, immediately - like I've been burned by this **_Older Predator_** \- when **_Imaginary Will,_** says those words to me and step away from the glass, not expecting him to say the next words to me at all.

_"Did you see potential in your, **Beloved?"**_

A tear forms, falls before I can even stop myself from doing it and voice breaking with emotion he is slowly getting out of me, hoarsely whisper the answer back to him.

_"Yes."_

_\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

** PART 4 - The Beginning of Falling into the Inferno Made by One's Beloved **

** Location - Baltimore Court House, Maryland **

** Hannibal's P.O.V: **

White flashes of multiple cameras held by Newshounds, Paparazzi and single Reporters - like Freddie Lounds, almost but she was of a different breed of them and did tend to be rather rude - dance like spotlights in front of my eyes, when I step out of the hired black Uber - which had transported me from **_B.S.H.C.I._** to the Court House - holding the black cane's stag handle, with my left hand.

All these different people, hungry for what the Chesapeake Ripper; Il Mostro of Firenze even Hannibal the Cannibal has to say when he is in the Court Room, being asked questions of what happened the night the Serial Killer - **_The Great Red Dragon_** \- was murdered.

Would I be given the Death Sentence or would another option been given?

Starting to walk, I see Jack Crawford - Head of the B.A.U. and now, though retired - is standing at the top of the stairs in his usual attire - black hat, tilted to one side and his long hazel coat with soft fur trim on the collar - and head up the steps, coming to stop in front of him on the step below because my left leg is acting up again then see across the road, to my surprise a very large group of fans holding placards and posters, the leader a woman with soft, silvery hair and glasses looking like some kind of writer for stories holding a poster saying _"GIVE IS HANNIBAL LECTER HIS FREEDOM. HE IS GRIEVING. CANNOT YOU NOT SEE IT, FREDERICK CHILTON!!!"_ and wonder where is Freddie Lounds, hiding at the moment.

"Getting deju vu vibes, Dr. Lecter?"

"Not really, Jack. Though, where's the fox? Is she hiding in the henhouse?"

He gives me look at this, interested by the use of words and chuckles lightly when he figures out who I mean then indicates behind him, making me turn slightly on the step hearing my left leg choose to clicking slightly in the process seeing the familiar red-head standing there wearing a very nice attire - no doubt loaned by a pal of her's as it looked too expensive for her to buy herself.

"Miss Lounds, you don't look like you've aged a day. How do you keep yourself...so fresh-looking?" I find myself purring out the question, causing some of the Newshounds, Paparazzi included shrinking back and away from me at the words.

"Lots of healthy salads, as you would know after you made me that wonder **_Sweet William Salad_** for dinner if you remember. No meat of course."

This makes people laugh, breaking the uneasy atmosphere and comes up the steps, brushing past me on her way in, suddenly filling my nostrils with a scent that makes me stiffen on the step as I deeply inhale it - recognize it, intimately and knowingly - then it dissipates, while I feel my right hand is trembling slightly against my right thigh. Jack, who stands next to me is watching with professional curiosity at this new thing that is happening to me.

"Something wrong?" He asks me, with general concern in his voice and shake my head at him.

I didn't want him knowing. I didn't want him seeing me, breaking slowly apart at the seams like fabric being frayed because someone hidden in the shadows was pulling the strings attached to me like I was a puppet they could use for their own means.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"All stand for the Honorable Judge Drachus."

I stand up with the rest of the Court House, watching the Judge go to his high seat and sit down, indicating silently for everyone to do the same - myself included. Settling into the same seat, Will had sat in during his Court Case brings back memories of seeing how he wasn't fully paying attention to everyone around him - like he was being pulled away by something else - and remember he had told me, he sometimes when needing peace and quiet thought of a stream.

Waded quietly into it, sorted his flying fishing rod and swung out the lure into the crisp, morning air enjoying the silence of being alone with himself, the stream and the fishes swimming in the clear, crystal water.

"We here to discuss today, the case of the recently incarcerated Hannibal Lecter and what Justice should be carried out. First, how some background information courtesy of Dr. Frederick Chilton, who will bring us up to date."

**Frederick. Hmm, should have killed him instead of framing him, Hannibal.**

**_Imaginary Will,_** says quietly in the back of my mind and internally "Shh" him, seeing how the so said man looks different ever since having many skin grafts from many donors to save his life after he been set on fire by **_Francis Dolerhyde._**

"Not much is known about, Hannibal Lecter. Not many people know how he become **_The Chesapeake Ripper_** or **_Il Mostro of Firenze._** I have managed to obtain some pertinent almost private information from a **_Private source._**

_What **Private source** would that be, I wonder, Chilton?_

I think, internally as Chilton walks over to projector already set up for whatever he was going to show the Judge and the whole Court Room then decide to ask him a question to make him sweat out the answer for me, when he switches it on to reveal a picture of my family.

"Your Honor, May I ask Dr. Chilton, if he does not mind a...very pertinent question?" I ask Judge Drachus, hearing murmurs behind me from people in the Court Room - also in the pews behind me.

"Granted."

Chilton, gulps with his Adam's apple bobbing slightly in the process at the side-look I give him, while keeping my gaze on the old photo of my Mother, Father, with his face though scratched out like someone had wanted it not there and finally myself, with Mischa sitting on my lap giggling as I tell her a joke to make smile at the camera. It had been nice day, only spoiled by something I couldn't remember in full detail because I never saw all it, just heard the raised voices of my Mother and Father shouting in the study, followed by silence. The weeping began for the next few weeks, before their deaths. I never found it, if it been my Mother crying at the time.

"How did you get permission, Dr. Frederick Chilton, to rifle though my family's private life?" I ask, seeing how he becomes slightly flustered loosening his tie around his throat and continue. "Only the surviving heir of the **_Lecter Estate_** can give permission for them to be taken out of their sealed state and I am the only surviving **_Heir."_**

"Umm....they were mailed specifically to me, after your family home was sold off in an Auction."

I tear my gaze away from the photo, looking at him and try to compose myself from doing anything rash at the moment. This was new information I had not been told at all.

"By who?"

He raises an eyebrow, stepping close to me - but still keeping a relative short distance away from me - and flicks his gaze down to the ring on my finger, giving a smug grin at me then gives his answer.

"You of all people, should know that. Your wear his wedding ring...on your ring finger, Hannibal."

Heart skips a beat, followed by standing up without any rational thought and have to place on hand on the back of the chair to grip tightly in white-knuckled grip to stop myself from stepping forwards, while the blood pounds in my ears blocking out all sound - causing it to become muffled, like I'm underwater - then a hand touches my shoulder, forcing me to sit back down as I distantly hear Judge Drachus saying _"Dr. Ocrates, please control your Client."_ and me saying "Apologies, Your Honor. I'll do better to control my emotions next time."

Chilton satisfied with his small victory, goes on with his talk - going into every detail of my unburied past and bringing it harshly into the light for all to see - what happened to my family; his theory on how Mischa, my little Sister died and finally, all comes up to the **_Night of the Great Red Dragon._**

"Now, we come to a tricky part here. Hannibal Lecter, will not at all discuss with even Alana Bloom - Head of the . ** _B.S.H.C.I_** and Owner of **_Verger Estate_** \- what happened that night when Francis Dolerhyde - The Great Red Dragon - was slayed. Any questions asked about it, are met with hard resistance and him changing the subject entirely to something else irrelevant implying to my theory...that Hannibal Lecter has been damaged by a very traumatic experience that happened that night. Jury Members, I leave you this information. Do with it what you will."

The Jury to my side, begin to talk amongst themselves whispering - like snakes slithering over each other to keep themselves warm - and finishing, one of them - bolder and not seeming afraid he was about to ask Serial Killer a question.

"Is this true, Hannibal Lecter, you've been constantly avoiding trying to answer the question about the night when **_F.B.I_** Agent Will Graham disappeared."

I can feel the eyes of Judge Drachus, the people in the Court Room - Newshounds, Paparazzi and Camera crew even - watching and waiting, while a clock on the wall seems to tick rather loudly to my ears, with bated breath for my answer.

"It....brings back painful memories, I rather not re-live if you don't mind. And also it's none of your damm...fucking business to know what happened that night. You don't need to know at all."

Shocked gasps at my rudeness - the swearing, which would made Will proud if he were still alive -  come from people and hear Judge Drachus, bang the hammer down on the gavel hard silencing the whole room.

"Hannibal Lecter, if you speak once more like that to Jury Member and don't answer the question properly. I will have you forcibly removed and returned to your prison cell, where I will ask Mrs. Alana Bloom nee Verger to remove everything in it."

A threat, a very good one as well. I apologize to the Jury Member, who accepts it with calm, indifferent face meaning they were not going to show emotion in a Court fill of people - but his name would stick in my head, Paul Krendler along with what recipes I could make him into - then pouring a glass of water, drink some of it to calm my nerves before I continue.

"Back to the questions. And why not, Hannibal Lecter?

**I say marinate him or cut his skull open, fry his brains in pan of butter then feed them to him.**

I quiet **_Imaginary Will,_** quickly shutting him in bedroom in my mind so he keeps quiet and doesn’t interrupt me again. I feel like sand running through someone's fingertips, not able to be caught and lifting my head, answer him.

"Because.....Will Graham, the man....who I have....loved and will always **_Love_** in my heart, ended up dying after....the **_Dragon_** came for us. We become...so badly wounded by him, that.....I don't remember what happened next ....." I try to finish the rest, but my voice cracks apart followed by wrapping my arms around myself - my composure snapping apart like thin strand of spider silk breaking apart in the wind.

Tears form, brim heavily over the edges - while everyone can see I'm not faking - falling onto the polished Court Room floor and breathing heavily, take another deep breath then continue once more.

"Will Graham, died that night, and I, survived. Jack Crawford, found me and can tell you the rest of what happened because I have no memory of some of that night."

 I turn my gaze to Alana, seeing her pale, ashened face at what she has just heard me say out loud everyone including Jack Crawford, who looks numb with shock.

"This is why, I didn't want to tell you, Alana, Jack. Because....I wanted to keep you still remembering him the way he had been, before everything went wrong."

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** TATTLECRIME WEBSITE  **

** "THE CHESAPEAKE RIPPER CONFESSES TO HAVING LOVED AND STILL LOVING DECEASED F.B.I. AGENT WILL GRAHAM" **

** By Freddie Lounds **

_Today at Baltimore Court House, it proved to be the most emotional and heart wrenching of Court Cases of Hannibal Lecter - **The Chesapeake Ripper** or **Il Mostro of Firenze -** who after some thorough questioning, has revealed the most hidden secret he has kepted from the world. _

_That he was in **Love** with Will Graham - like Dante was to Beatrice in his Sonnets, only Dante could admire her from afar seeing how she fallen for another man. Though Hannibal, managed to get close to Graham intimately one might say after discovering his ability to think like Serial Killer’s and now confirmed by admitting it in Court. _

_But what happened that **Night of the Dragon** , as it is now being called, Hannibal Lecter is saying........_

The person, in the shadows, with only the faint glow of the laptop illuminating the apartment siting room slams the lid shut followed by leaning back in the armchair keeping their face in the shadows. Seeing the picture of Hannibal, which comes below the article, they clench their first tightly at it, while sea-blueish green eyes glint in the moonlight filtering through gap in the large red curtains.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**  Hannibal's P.O.V:  **

"Dr. Lecter, I did not expect what you said today in the Court Room." A voice says muffled and far away interrupting the haze I'm in. "What made you say it? You really loved, Will Graham didn't you?"

Lifting my head up, I see it is Freddie Lounds, standing in front of me holding two cups of takeaway coffee in her hands.

"Hmm, what did you say, Miss Lounds?"

This makes her frown at me, placing the takeaway cups down on the table in front of me and reaches forwards, placing the back of her hand against my forehead to check my temperature.

"Where you at this moment, Hannibal? She asks her, moving her hand away when she see's nothing is wrong in a fever way.

"Nowhere." I reply, getting up out the seat and she steps closer to me, going to say something only close her mouth - deciding now is not the time to say it.

Neither of us really know what to say to each-other and she slips away, after leaning up to gently kiss my cheek, stroking a strand of hair from my forehead to tuck it gently behind my ear then slips away, heading out of the Court room leaving me alone.

I see she has left one of the takeaway coffee cups, which picking up take the lid off seeing hidden within is small smartphone and take it out, switching it on to see it password protected with question above the box.

**WHERE DOES THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PAST AND FUTURE COME FROM?**

Re-echoing the words I had said to Will in the Uzzi Gallery, while both of us sat in front of one of Botticelli’s paintings and typing the answer **_"MINE. BEFORE HIM AND AFTER HIM."_** watch quietly, while the screen changes.

Words begin to form on the black background.

_I have become the **Shade** in your **Memory.**_

_Through the hallways and many rooms in your Memory Palace, I must flee._

_They - your **Nightmares** of the **Past** \- must not sense I'm here. _

_Through eternal suffering; loss of the family we could had shared and life, I must take flight with wings of black like crow feathers._

_I have become the **Shade,** you grieve for because I'm not in your embrace._

_Here as you begin your journey, Hannibal, through the **Inferno** of your **Memory Palace,** I'll be watching from the shadows from a distance._

_We cannot meet. Not until you have travelled through Inferno and come out unscathed from the flames._

_Only then, after that you will find me near a fountain with angel looking downwards and where you will discover that close to the water **Fireflies** dance with the **Snails.**_

The screen fades to black, with a picture appearing making me turn the phone landscape to look at it then my heart skips a beat at the sight of Botticelli's painting - the one I used to draw when in my youth - represented in full-scale in the same place Matthew Brown - a former B.S.H.C.I. orderly - had tried to kill me, because Will had asked him to.

_\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_"Easy. Forwards. Back it up a bit. Got it."_

Jack, standing next to me in the Cherry picker shouts down to the man operating it and we come to a juddering halt, right over the large fresco placed in the swimming pool as I look up and down the length of it, while in the swimming pool Agent Price and Zeller move carefully about as not to disturb anything of signifance that may show who had made it.

"How did you about this, Hannibal?" Jack asks me, while I hold onto the railing in front of me with both hands to grip it for support.

"A test, Jack. To see whether I can travel through the metaphorical Inferno, like Dante did and come out unscathed." I reply, looking down at the fresco feeling my eyes slip close.

The golden pendulum swings in front of my eyes, once then twice followed by final third time.

I open my eyes.

_We have planned this, ever we decided it. Meticously thinking and careful planning it all in time._

_The **Prey** already stalked and picked out of the others - the one's they consider " **Prey”.** They had no idea at the time, that we " **The Apex Predator”** were hunting them and by the time they found out it was too late._

_We set the scene, laying the pieces down and arranging them to our needs. Like when one is setting a table for a **Dinner party.**_

_We step back to admire our finished work. The task that has been done._

_This is our .... **Design.**_

 

Coming out of the re-construction, I flutter my eyes open looking at the right hand corner where Agent Price is heading towards, where the woman being chased by the man are both laying.

"Agent Price, could you tell me are those **_Sweet Williams_** coming out of the woman's mouth?"

I shout down to him, making him bend to have a look and he turns his face to look up at me, with shock and amazement on his features.

"How did you know?" Jack asks me, while the Cherry picker descends downwards and when it comes to a rest, turn my face to look at him.

"Because it is what this new **_"Fledging Killer"_** wanted me to see." I reply, turning my gaze back to man chasing the female, with **_Sweet Williams_** flowing from her mouth.

**What do you see?**

_I see you my, **Beloved.** I see you. _

** PART 5 - Stepping on the Path towards Inferno within One's Mind and Whispers through One Own's New Chrysalis  **

** Hannibal's P.O.V: **

_"Tell me what happened today at Baltimore Swimming Pool."_

Lifting my head from the dinner that Dr. Ocrates has made himself, while both of us sit at the large eating table in the Walking Exercise Room eating the meal together. He is wearing a fine **_Cranbourne_** suit, crimson tie with gold swirls on it and fine soft diamond shaped cufflinks on his wrists.

"A fresco had been made of a Botticelli painting, I had used to draw in my youth when staying in Florence." I tell him, sitting back in the ornate chair as I pick up the glass of **_Bodega Classical Palacio del Camino Real Blanco_** wine, to inhale its scent.

A mixture of cooked apple fruit supported by sweet peach and wrap-around vanilla texture fills my nostrils then take a sip of it, feeling it sooth my palate and complement the meal he had made, with some ingredients he had brought from his own home.

"Ahh, yes. I know which one you mean. How were they represented? The woman with flowers flowing from her mouth, while the man chased her."

"It was to show ** _"The Lustful"_** or carnal-malefactors. These two people had grown up separately and the man had watched the woman from afar seeing her happy and in **_Love."_**

"Jealousy, no doubt. The man begins to soon lust after her, because he felt she should have chosen him instead. Wouldn't you say?" Dr. Ocrates says, picking up his glass of **_Chateau d'Yquem_** and taking a sip of it.

"Are you talking from past experience? Maybe you are. How long before she begin to suspect you were manipulating her?"

_Like are you me._

Those words hang in the air, between us and everything goes silent, while he lowers his glass back down onto the table then dabbing his lips with napkin, gets out his chair to come around the table to where I sit.

Before I know it or see it, his hand harshly backhands me across the face with such force, it causes my bottom lip to split in the process drawing blood then my chin is grabbed by his hand, turning my face by it forcing me to stare into those soul-less eyes.

He leans forwards, tongue flicking out - like serpent's tongue - to lap up the blood starting to trickle down the side of split lip and brushes it against my lips, tasting the wine still on my lips then covers my lips with his, causing me to close them, only to wince when he nips my lips forcing them to open.

All I can do is stay still, trembling heavily with tears forming in my eyes to run down the sides of my cheeks and try to pull back away from the Old Serpent, managing to do so, my head soon lolling to one side at the sametime feeling a slight prick of a needle going into my skin.

_"No...No...Please, don't do this to me....No."_

_"Hush. Now. I'm going to take care of you, Hannibal.....like I have with your **Beloved."**_

I don't hear the rest of the words whispered, only my name with blackness succumbing my vision dragging me downwards into an abyss so deep and dark - it feels **_Insidious_**.

I remember nothing from thereafter.

****

**_Forgiveness_ ** **is too great and difficult for one person. The _Betrayer_ and the _Betrayed. Betrayal_ and _Forgiveness_ are best seen akin to falling in _Love._**

**_The Viper,_ ** _hisses from among ferns, growing among the foliage of the night-forest and through the webbing of the **Chrysalis** I'm lying curled up in. I want to stay in it, the warmth of it and never come out at all. _

_But I must._

_Placing my hands on the fine mesh of the **Chrysalis,** I rip it apart gasping breathlessly - like I've been starved of oxygen - and arching my back, tilting my head backwards to stare through the tree canopy eaves seeing a multitude of stars spreading like a path in the sky. _

_I've been re-birthed._

**Is Hannibal in _Love_ with me?**

_A whisper - like a soft breeze ruffling the top of trees - sounds, making me get up slowly following through the tangled forests with branches over me like a Chapel roof._

_The beating of wings. A solitary **Hawk** flies overhead, heading towards the landscape that appears before me. Grey ash spread from miles upon miles, with bleached white skeletons on or in it along with dead trees then begin to walk across the dried up **Sea of Ash.**_

_My only companion - a **Solitary Hawk.**_

_The roaring, which I hear while walking up a large **Ash** sand-dune makes me turn my face to watch as in the far distance the wind starts to swirl on the ground until rising to its full height. _

_A windstorm, ever circling around and around. Like a hurricane forming it begins to move across the dried up sea-bed of the Sea of Ash, picking up the skeletons in its wake or path._

_It starts to head towards me, the wind from it whipping my hair about and it comes so close to me that as it circles with one of the skeletons hanging out, everything goes into slow motion._

_A bony finger comes up, muscles and veins forming along with the rest then lift their head to reveal their face to me - a face from my **Past,** before the events of the **Dragon** and before so other things._

**See. See.....what is coming.**

_Then everything goes back to normal, the windstorm whipping off to continue its path then turn my gaze to see what..... **Abigail**.....had told me was coming and can do nothing but stare. It rises and falls, cresting over the large Ash sand-dunes and heading straight towards me, while I try to run backwards. _

_Only to find myself rooted to spot, feeling the crimson waters slam into me with such intense force, I'm caught up in the swirling mass finding myself not able to breathe or even reach the surface only instead being dragged downwards with bubbles of oxygen rising upwards towards the surface._

**Will all the perfumes of sweet Arabia, cleanse these poor hands of mine.**

**_The Viper,_ ** _hisses the quote from Macbeth in my ear, making me shoot my eyes open to reveal I'm lying on the polished stone floor of the **Palermo Chapel,** naked in film of **Sweet William** petals from the **Sea of Ash.**_

_She slithers off me, onto the polished floor Chapel floor and shifts into her human form revealing a Bedelia in a snake-scale dress that shimmers in the soft dawn light streaming through the windows._

_Getting up slowly and gently, I feel the **Sweet William** petals falling off my nude body to the floor then suddenly arch my back, a burning sensation going through my skin right over the existing brand. _

**Mason, wanted to brand your face. I told him, better to brand you like one of his pigs’ right here between the shoulder blades.**

_The ghost of Cordell Doemlling, whispers behind my back soon disappearing as ropes shoot outwards out of the shadows wrapping themselves around me some slithering up to start choking me around the throat and the one's tightening around my wrists pull my arms back by them then a blood-curdling cry - my own - echoes in the abandoned Chapel, followed by bones cracking apart._

_My life-force spurting everywhere, followed by the ropes slithering back into the shadows and fall backwards onto the engraved carving of the skeleton with its hands clasped like they have been chained or handcuffed together then dust begins to fall from the ceiling at the sametime underneath me a crack forms to open up like a giant maw of blackness._

_I fall, soon landing heavily at the bottom of the well - the same one, I had placed Miriam Lass in - and now, both my arms have become stumps - representing what I had done to Abel Gideon - then shivering heavily, a shadow blocks out the light making me lift my head up with eyes widening at the sight of the person._

_Chiyoh, with someone behind her hiding in the darker shadows and she kneels down, placing her hand on the lid slamming it shut with firm bang dousing me into the cold, wet darkness of the well._

** PART 6 - Returning Home to a Place of One's Birth, Where Shadows of the Past are Hidden and An Admission from the Old Serpent **

** Location - Aukstaitija, Lithuania - Night  **

** Hannibal's P.O.V: **

I wince heavily, every amount of movement I try to make sending every inch of my body screaming in brutal agony with my hands digging deep grooves into the leaves of the forest floor then fluttering my eyes open, my head lolling to one side because I'm still drowsy and weak from whatever I've been given seeing a sight that sends my heart racing at it.

In front of me is the one place I didn't want to see again, because of the Memories it brought back.

My birthplace - **_Lecter Dvaras Estate._**

_\--------------------------------------------------------------------_

Managing to get up, stumbling backwards to lean against a large _"v"_ shaped tree, leaves sticking to the clothes and long threadbare coat falling off to land back onto the forest floor they belong to then in the far distance, can see the large Tower with sunset ivy growing upwards on the crumbling ruin of what had once been a lively home.

Fill of laughter, happiness and joy now silenced by the events that had happened after my family had been murdered - Mischa killed by the starving soldiers, The Orphanage where I was nearly sexually assaulted by some older Orphan's ruthless Leader and finally, Uncle Robertus coming to adopt me and raise me properly.

A snapping of twig underfoot, makes me listen quietly - like when a deer listens out for a Predator and make sure whether there is a threat or not - moving silently away from the tree, walking through the forest with autumn leaves on the trees, without making any sound then come to the fountain.

Who would be hunting me in the dark?

Another twig snaps underfoot to my right, while I continue to stand staring at the sight of the **_Fireflies_** dancing with the **_Snails_** \- who move about, slithering over the tangled Rose bush thorns and emerald Ivy - then feel a presence behind me, with the scent of his aftershave filling my nostrils - permeating them - and quivering heavily, turn to face Dr. Ocrates as he comes up to me.

A hand comes up to cup my cheek, lightly stroking my cheekbone and before I know it or can say anything, he pulls me flush against him as something sharps stabs straight into my abdomen ripping across it in the same way I had given Will his scar - the **_Joker's Grin -_** feeling some blood splash onto the paved area near the fountain, while I gasp in shock followed by gripping his arm tightly with one hand for support.

"You!!?....Why!!!?....."

_"Hmm. Why do you think?"_

He whispers in my ear, breath hot against my cheek and pulls back to look at me, gasping labourly with my chest rising and falling then pulls away from me, allowing me to collapse against the fountain holding one hand to the gaping wound - which comes short though, stopping just near the **_North Star_** the **_Dragon_** gave me - feeling the blood gush through my fingers to stain the ground around me and the clothes, I wear.

"Do you think you could change me?"

Dr. Ocrates, gives me at look at these words looking down at me and watching, the way I'm trying to keep my strength from failing then kneels down on one knee placing the hand holding the curved knife.

"I already have....by forcing you to come back to your **_Birthplace_** and confront the **_Demons_** of your **_Past_** and the **_Bad Memories_**. Though, you are not yet ready for the rest of this place just yet."

I try to say something, only to fall to one side with a muffled thump hands in front of me, almost looking like they have been chained like the engraved skeleton one's in the **_Palermo Chapel_** then chest rising and falling, feel my heartbeat slowly going downwards until I breathe my last breath, slipping my eyes close as **_Death_** sweeps inwards on **_Raven_** wings.

Wings as black as **_Midnight._**

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** PART 7 - Returning Back to the Place, Where the Night of the Dragon Transpired, the Second Letter and Reunited with One's _Beloved_ **

** 11 MONTHS LATER  **

** Location – Safe-house near the Rolling Atlantic Ocean **

** Hannibal's P.O.V: **

**_The Safe-house_** , has been surprisingly left undisturbed by the ** _F.B.I_** and in good condition, like they had not known to what to do with it after cleaning the paved courtyard of the body of Francis Dolerhyde - **_The Great Red Dragon_** \- as I stand near the eroding bluff, which has had a barrier placed on it to stop people falling over the edge, listening quietly to the waves crashing against the large rocks below - the same rocks, we had both come close to hitting - as the slightly harsh wind whips my now long blonde hair with silvery highlights tied back by the black hairband.

I step away, heading to the over to the house seeing the large window has been fixed at some point and the patio, re-paved - everything cleaned to make it look, nothing had happened here at all - then going over to the front door, bend down lifting up the plant pot turning it upside down slip the bottom off to reveal the spare key.

I stand up straight, placing a key in the lock and turning it, push the door open with one hand then taking a deep breath step inside, calmly shut it behind me. White covers have been placed over everything in the Safe-house, making me sigh softly and go over to the piano taking hold of the white sheet then pull it off to reveal an envelope with my name on it written in Will's handwriting.

_\---------------------------------------------------_

The sun is setting over the rolling Atlantic ocean, turning it into shimmering liquid of lilac, soft yellow and orange in the far distance when I come out of the shower with steam curling outwards from the open door's then go over to the bedside table, picking up the envelope - after drying my hands thoroughly with the small towel - and open it, taking the letter out as something falls to the ground with a soft thump making me look down to see what it is.

A small bunch of **_Sweet Williams,_** tied together with black chemise lace and kneeling down pick it up then walk backwards to sit on the end of the large bed, starting to read the letter he had written or has written.

Could it be that Will was alive, without my knowledge?

I start to read, words flowing off the paper and his voice echoing in my head, soon dropping it to the carpet lay backwards to stare up at the ceiling with the mirror in it shutting my eyes shut to block out everything feeling a tear trickle down my cheek to roll down onto the duvet cover.

A sliding noise makes me stiffen, laying still and hearing soft footsteps padding into the bedroom. The scent of Will's aftershave fills my nostrils - wrapping itself around me - and the bed dips slightly, under the weight of the person covering me with their shadow then open my eyes to reveal a sight above me, followed by my voice choking up when I say his name.

"W....i....ll"

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Time stands still.

Will Graham - the man I loved and will always love - is alive in front of me, leaning over me more accurately to look down at me and bringing one trembling hand up to his cheek then touch it lightly, with my fingertips finding it real and so alive.

Hitched whimpers escape from my mouth, followed by pulling him down to cradle him in my arms burying my face into the crook of his neck then he rolls to lay on his side, sifting his hand through my hair to calm me as move to lay the side of my head on his chest listening to the throbbing beat of his heart.

"I....thought you...had died that night."

\-------------------------------------------------------------

Soft music, plays from the radio - which Will, had found in the back of the wardrobe in a packed up box and checked it wasn't something the F.B.I had bugged in case I had returned to this Safe-house - while both of share a plate of black olives, French bread made and baked in the oven with French cheese melted on top - a simple meal for now.

At the sametime, he kisses me breathlessly delving his tongue into my mouth to entwine with my own and moving the plate out the way, placing it on the bedside table, he soon hauls me up onto my knees, and with our arms wrapping around each-other's body.

One hand rests on my back, over the Verger Brand - like he wants to claw it off my back - and his other sifting through my hair then he let's go of my lips, descending them down to my neck causing me to tilt my head backwards to the ceiling gasping breathlessly as his moist, warm lips trail up and down my neck.

We fall backwards on top of the duvet cover, when he pushes me back in the process, with a soft muffled thump. He soon slips downwards, kissing the scars on my front - the **_North Star,_** from the **_Great Red Dragon_** , Jack's scar on my chin from the Torture hook and the half **_Joker's Grin_** \- then slips further downwards, going between my thighs and sliding my hands downwards take hold of his cheek with one hand - stroking his cheekbone with my thumb.

The other I take hold of the back of his head with, sifting it through his hair followed by tensing immediately, my hips arching off the duvet cover releasing into his warmth, moist mouth - abdomen muscles sucking inwards - then thighs quivering around his head, sink back down again as my toes uncurl from the duvet cover.

"Haaa....I **_Love_** you."

"I know."

 

 

** PART 8 - Continuing the Journey through the Inferno as Secrets Come to Light, A Dinner with Old Frenemies and Shone the First Crime Scene from the New Player on the Mahjong Board is shown to One **

** Hannibal's P.O.V: **

_"Can't you stay?"_

_"I wish, I could, Hannibal. But, you must as I said in the letter you must see me at the place in your **Birthplace."**_

_"You said we wouldn't meet again. What made you change your mind, Will?"_

Will, who is busy buttoning up a black shirt turns his face to look at me, still lying under the large duvet cover of the bed propped up against a mound of pillows and smile softly comes around the large bed, sitting down on the side of the bed then takes hold of my hand, still with the golden wedding band on my ring finger and strokes it lightly smiling down at the sight of seeing it where he told me in the **_Second Letter_** where it belonged.

“What made me change my mind? I needed to see you, feel you in my arms like you needed to feel me.” He replies, bringing his hand up to hold the back of my head and leans close, kissing me lightly on the lips then it becomes bolder, tongues entwining in breathless harmony and when he pulls back with a strand of saliva connecting our lips.

I want him. Leaning close, I kiss him trying to entice him into doing what he done to me that night and he pulls away from me, breathing heavily with his chest rising and falling heavily under the black shirt then lunges at me, getting over me.

 

 

Shifting muscles, harsh breathless gasps, pants and grunts followed by Will, gripping my thigh tightly in his hand and the other resting on my back, while holding me close to me as I ride him, undulating my own hips up and down to feel him slipping in and out of me with each intense thrust that sends spine tingles running up my spine.

Tilting my head backwards, I moan heavily at the feeling of being intimate with him – after being separated for so long from him – and keep my eyes closed, focusing on the sensations he is making me feel. Alana had asked me, were Will and I ever sexually involved - Well here was the answer to that question.

Neither of us speak, just succumb to feel of each-other’s bodies and being connected this intimately then tense in his arms, gasping softly his name in the stillness of the bedroom, with the sun shining onto our gleaming bodies covered in dew drops of sweat.

_“Will.”_

Afterwards, now standing at the front door in a clean suit and the threadbare coat – which had originally been his – both of kiss, softly moving our lips against each-other’s changing position each time to make it more deeper then when he pulls back, feel him caress my ring finger with his golden wedding band on it.

“I love you, my **_Marido asesino_**.” He says, calling me Murder Husband in Spanish and pulling him in for one last kiss, pull back stroking both his cheekbones with my thumbs.

“I love you as well, **_Myilamis.”_** I say, resting my forehead against his and he pulls away, smiling softly then let’s go of my hand, slipping away until we next meet again and can embrace fully.

 

 

The large shopping complex, is fill of people going back and forth their everyday lives – shopping bags in their hands, phones being used as the younger generation text or call their pals and the older generation just enjoying each-other’s company – as I walk through the mass of them, heading towards the Old Food Shop to collect ingredients for the remaining days I would be staying in the **_Safe-house._**

It is still there in the far corner, across from the large Bank with faded golden Elizabethan writing on the glass door and pushing it open, hear a shop bell tinkling above my head reminding distantly of the time when I had gone to Tobias Budge’s Shop then step fully into the interior.

The different smells of freshly cut herbs – Lavender, Basil, Chives and the rest of the Herb family- along with a fresh bread smell fill my nostrils, while I walk down one of the aisles then come to stop, reaching for some of the Basil and mint leaves then placing them in the small basket, head over to where they keep the fresh loaves when a scent makes me straighten up seeing reflected through an old mirror that Alana and Margo, have come in with their son – Morgan.

I look more closely, frowning suddenly at the little one – curly hair with hints of blonde mixed within it and yet, he had none of Mason Verger’s features at all – and taking in the details, wish to deny what I’m seeing.

But there was no denying it. The little one, looked just like me and Will, combined by DNA and feel so betrayed by Alana. The little one was mine and Will’s biological son in some way and picking up the some of the French Loaves, go to place them in the basket when because my hand is trembling so much drop the basket plus glass cylinders of the Herbs.

Blood soon plips onto the wooden floor, while I wince slightly clenching my hand to stem the flow of blood from the cut and keep my face lowered, when high heels appear in front of my vision.

“Are you alright? To you need some medical aid?” She says, while little Morgan comes up to her and takes hold of one of her hands, while I flick my gaze up to him quickly seeing how he looks at me curiously then getting up, shake my head at her silently.

The Shop-owner comes over, with dustpan and brush wiping the remnants of the shattered glass, spilled herbs and picks up the French loaves then heads into the back, while coming back with a bandage and indicates to come into the back so they can apply it.

 

 

Afterwards, I head back through seeing Alana is just standing up holding in her hand, the golden band wedding ring, Will had given me and taking a deep breath, step close reaching out with my hand to take it off her when she closes her fist over it then turns her gaze to look straight at me, stepping closer to me it makes me step backwards hitting the shop counter and place both my hands on it to stabilize myself.

“Is it you?” She asks me, pressing herself right up against me, I flinch heavily at her look and go over to move away – away from her - when suddenly she grabs me slamming me back against the counter with such force, bottles of prosciutto fall off to smash onto the floor with tinkling noise of glass smashing into million small pieces.

The current of crimson, spreading outwards like a blood pool from where they’ve shattered and reflecting us both – in my imagination I see the ** _Wendigo_** and her imago **_“The Ochre Siren”_** – and grabbing her wrist of the hand, that holds the ring tighten it tightly – feeling the tiny bones, grinding – and manage to make her release enough to reveal it.

I take it, slipping it back on my ring finger and fling her hand away from me, slipping away from her then walk past Margo and little Morgan, who steps to one side hiding behind her leg and yet, looking at me with child-like curiosity.

Heading to the shop door, I see Jack Crawford closely followed by **_S.W.A.T_**   men, guns leveled and trained at me, turn my gaze to look back at her then sighing softly, open the glass door and step out of the shop. I walk forwards, until I’m standing right in front of Jack, who is looking at me trying to comprehend how in hell I’m alive and why did I look so different.

“Hello, Jack. Could we talk somewhere more private? You know how the Gossips are in this kind of place.”

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Home, Jack. I’ve been home and now, come back because something else has come up. Tell me about **_“La Morte’s Shadow”_** , Jack? Tell me, why does this **_“Fledging Killer”_** copy the Crime scenes I done right down to every…detail?”

“You can’t possibly know this info. It hasn’t been released to Press at all.”

“A Little Birdy, sang in my ear and I, listened, Jack. Oh, did I listen to their tune.”

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** Location – Safe-house near the Rolling Atlantic Ocean – Mid-morning **

** Hannibal’s P.O.V: **

The popping of a cork from a bottle of **_Rioja Crianza 2016, Spain,_** that I’ve just opened allows for release of smell telling it me it has been spending a year in oak, mellowing its flavors and also, filled with succulent bramble fruit then set out three wine glasses for myself, Jack, Alana and Margo, along with the glass of orange juice for Little Morgan.

It would complement the roast lamb, I’m serving and placing the glasses down on the dining room table at the seats where Alana and Jack will be sitting, hear the doorbell ringing then head across the dining room to the front door, opening it to reveal Jack, standing there looking at the courtyard – or what had been the courtyard as it now had the stone slabs ripped up to reveal the fertile ground beneath and turned into garden with a Japanese and Florentine theme to it.

A car pulling up, makes me see it is Alana coming up the gravel driveway behind the **_Safe-house_** and come to halt, soon killing the engine then she opens the car door, stepping out of the passenger as I see sitting in the Driver’s seat is Margo Verger. She keeps her face turned away and there was mistaking the slight flinch, she makes when Alana goes to kiss her cheek then gives a fake smile and says something I don’t hear.

In the back, his Little Morgan and before I can stop myself walk over to the car as he pushes the door open then jumps out, looking at me when I bend down to his eye level smiling softly at him.

“Hello, little one, are you hungry?”

Little Morgan, nods with small _“Uh-uh”_ and reaches my hand, wanting to hold it so interlacing my fingers with his smaller one’s stand up walking to the house, seeing how Jack is watching as Little Morgan, begins to talk to me about how after Lunch he wants to see my garden, while Jack passes me to help Alana with something.

I smile down at little boy, nodding in reply and coming to the front door head inside with him to the dining room, where he suddenly turns to hug me tightly around my legs starting to whimper softly with tears forming in his eyes.

“Morgan.” I begin to say, but he shakes his head fisting his hands into my suit trousers and placing my hand on the top of his head, sift it through his curly locks to calm him, feeling him tremors against my legs then kneeling down on both knees, wrap my arms around moving my other hand to cradle the back of his head and push it into my chest, where he buries his face into the warmness of it still crying in my lap.

It’s what Margo and Jack see when they come into the dining room – the sight of me holding the little one, in such a gentle embrace and also stills Alana, in walking further in as she closes the front door behind her.

 

 

Taking the Roast lamb – normal lamb, not someone because my strength to try and kill was not yet fully back – out of the oven, I close it with my elbow carrying the steaming oven dish into the sitting room where Little Morgan, Margo, Alana and Jack are waiting at the dining table then place it down in the center on corkboard mat.

“A simple dish. Roast lamb, with root vegetables and herbs from the garden.” I say, picking up the carving knife and briefly looking at my reflection see **_Imaginary Will,_** appear for only a split second face covered in blood with the gash on his cheek gaping slightly then disappears when Jack, gets up and comes around to take it off me.

“Sit down, Hannibal. I’ll carve the meat for you.” He says, making me nod silently in reply giving him smile to tell him I’m alright and sit down with my back to the large windows at the head of the dining table.

Jack, carves methodically places appropriately sized slices onto the plates and adding the root vegetables and herbs, followed by the wine - **_Rioja Crianza 2016, Spain –_** being poured into three glasses, while Little Morgan takes his orange juice placing it next to his plate.

He sits next to my right, Jack on my left with Alana sitting next to him and across from her Margo as I look calmly at the empty seat in front of me – the one seat, where Will would sit looking straight at me and enjoying the food I cooked – then picking up the glass of wine, inhale it’s scent once more and take a sip to calm my nerves, placing it down on the table.

“Alana, tell me how goes the Verger Meatpacking Business. Prospering, I believe.” I ask her, slicing into the fine lamb at the sametime and taking a soft bite of it, while Jack looks interested in hearing on what she has to say.

“Mummy, brought some new hogs. One’s really big…He got the…biggest tusks you ever seen. I called him Horus.” Morgan chirps in, before she can answer and turn to smile softly at him seeing he is enjoying his portion very much.

“After one of the Egyptian Gods, the one who sees all?” I ask him, making him give another _“Uhh-uhh_ ” and remember have a book about Egyptian History on the bookshelf he might like to borrow.

“Morgan, likes History, Hannibal. The gorier, the better and has already surprised his History Teacher at school. Any History – old or even, New.” Alana says, managing to interject and gets out a Homework sheet handing to me as I take it, seeing it is very lengthy essay surprising enough about **_“The Chesapeake Ripper”_** and debating why people misunderstood him and didn’t understand him.

Little Morgan – mine and Will’s son, did meaning he had inherited my **_Beloved’s Empathy Skills_** – and ask her, if I can hold onto it to read for later on then getting out the chair, clear away the now empty plates and head into the kitchen to bring through desert – **_Blood and Chocolate Pudding._** The blood, actually being raspberry current. **_–_** and placing the dishes in the kitchen sink, filled with warm, soupy pick up the plates with desert on them and head through placing them down.

Little Morgan, seems as I come around to sit down in my chair, looks drained of energy with his head nodding down onto his chest and placing the back of my hand, against his forehead ask Jack, if he get a bowl and fill it with some cold water as well as bring a cloth through, while calmly lifting him out the seat so he can sit on my lap.

“Morgan, little one. How many fingers, I’m I holding up?” I ask him, holding up five as he weakly says _“Five”_ to me, while Jack comes back through carrying the bowl of cold water and a cloth for me then places it on the table, moving the plates out the way to make room for it.

Dabbing the cloth into the cool water, I wring it enough and bringing it up to his forehead begin to dab it softly to make sure he induced fever of whatever was affecting him goes down then gulping slightly, flick my gaze to Alana calmly sitting there holding the wine glass in her hand and not doing anything to help at all, while Margo comes over to me.

“I think, I better take him, Hannibal. He does have school, tomorrow.” Margo says, making me look up her when Morgan whimpers and turns into my chest, fisting his hands into my shirt when she goes to lift him away from off my lap.

“Margo, Could he stay with me, tonight? I could easily drop him off for you, tomorrow at his school? It’s the Levestien Private School isn’t it? In Maryland, Virginia?”

“Yes. Well, I don’t see why not. I did notice you have some amazing History books on your bookshelf. Alana, Darling is that okay with you?”

Alana, turns her gaze to look at me as Jack, is called away by his phone ringing in his pocket and quietly, thanks me for the meal telling me he’ll see me sometime with one hand holding the phone to his ear then he is outside standing in the garden talking on his phone, while Little Morgan has fallen asleep in my arms.

 

 

“I hope you’re prepared for this, Hannibal.”

Jack says, when I step out of his car into crisp, cold air with red scarf wrapped around my neck to keep it warm and shrug the collar of the threadbare woolen coat tighter around me then begin to walk with him to the middle of the large field where right in the center of it is a large stag head with young woman on it – who looks just like Cassie Boyle, the deceased girl I had killed because I had considered her rude and offensive when she had laughed at old man when he had slipped on the ice when coming out the shop he owned after she had pushed him for just no apparent reason and had replayed to me _“Because it’s fun. Stop being such, dweeb, old timer”_ so had impaled her on antlers taking her lungs afterwards while she was still alive.

She had screamed, during the whole process of it when I had being doing it in the large Hut where Jack, had found Miriam Lass then come out of my thoughts going around it, to look at the dead body impaled brutally, savagely and eerily the same way I had done it to Cassie Boyle. I step backwards, seeing a message on piece of paper weighed down by a rock and picking it up see all it says is “ _DO YOU LIKE MY GIFT DR. LECTER?”_ and hand it carefully to Zeller, who takes it off me heading over to Jack to show him then the golden pendulum swings once, twice and finally a third time pulling me into the reconstruction of the Crime Scene.

**_Prey_ ** _is weak, panicking with her **Fear** rolling off her bodies in sweet waves towards me as stroke her cheek lightly with my gloved hand and placing my hands flat on her chest push her hard sending her flying backwards soon to be gloriously impaled by the antlers of the Stag’s head. _

_A choked gasp, followed by crimson spilling gushing out her mouth to run down it like waterfall going over the edge or water going through a mountain valley then taking the hunting knife – borrowed, not stolen from that other man the one who likes Dr. Lecter so much._

_Sea-bluish green eyes, curly soft brown hair and a scar running down his cheek from fighting. Should have been my scar, not theirs and going over to the young women begin to prepare her for him._

_Do you see me, Dr. Hannibal Lecter? This is my gift to you. **This is my Design.** _

I come out of it, stumbling backwards and walking quickly over to some shrubs soon violently heave up what I had eaten just minutes ago – the parts of Roast lamb, root vegetables and herbs – and onto the pure, white snow staining it then shuddering, wipe my mouth of the acidic taste still feeling it in my mouth and heave a wee bit again followed by open water bottle being handed to me by Agent Price.

“Be glad, I can cope with someone puking their guts up.” He says, while I take a drink of the refreshing cool water and swallow it down stepping back away from the pile of vomit then kick a mound of snow over it to cover it.

“Think I may have pulled something. Probably a muscle.” I grunt out, feeling a slight twinge of pain radiating from near where the **_Joker’s Grin_** and the **_Great Red Dragon’s Star_** – as it was aptly being named by Little Morgan, after he had seen it by accident when I had been reaching to get him the **_Egyptology Book of the Egyptian Gods and Goddesses_** was – then look back at young women impaled on the Antler’s, trying to calm my racing heart which feels like it is threatening to escape from my ribcage. Whoever this **_“Fledging Killer”_** was, they knew Will was alive and perceived him as a threat

 

****

****

****

** PART 9 – Another Night-time Visit from One’s Beloved with Exchange of Information and Sharing the Night Together Once More by Hunting Together **

** Location – Safe-house near the Rolling Atlantic Ocean **

** Hannibal’s P.O.V **

_“Hannibal. I see you settled fully into this place.”_

_“Will. Come in. Supper is in the oven.”_

Will, standing in plain black suit with his hair slicked back and wearing a different brand of aftershave then walks down the path to the bench nearby to the eroding bluff then stepping out, close the front door behind me and walk down the path myself looking at the soft waves of the Atlantic going back and forth in gentle ripples.

The stars are shining above, spreading outwards in a long path, with mixture of hues of soft green and blue mixing with the soft silver light of them then sit down next to him, reminding of the time in Uzzi Gallery in front of the Botticelli Painting.

_"If I saw you everyday, Will. I would remember this day."_

_"I would to."_

"There is something, I need to tell you." I say, sitting down next to him and crossing one leg over the other and he turns his face to look at me then his hand covers mine, rubbing circles into it to calm me. "This **_Fledging Killer_** , is perceiving you as a threat and wanting to be…..”

“The object of your affections. The shattered little **_Teacup_**.” He replies, making me shake my head at this and he moves his hand to take hold of both my cheeks turning my face to look at him then places his forehead against mine, saying the next words to me.

_“ **Hunt** with me, tonight.”_

_“Haa…I’m not as strong as once was, Will.”_

_“Hannibal, you don’t have to do anything. You’re the…Lure that will reel them.”_

_“Have you chosen .you’re **Prey?”**_

_“I’ll let you choose.”_

** Author’s Note – Homophobia and phrase used **

** Location – Bar Near Wolftrap, Virginia – Night-time  **

Shouting, followed a crashing of two cars outside and glass shattering makes the patrons of the Bar, still in drinking or chatting among themselves then a bloodcurdling scream coming from someone, causes a large burly, brute of a man to get up to check the disturbance – being of course the owner of the Bar. 

They step outside into the cold, crisp air with snow covering the car park and sees laying there trying in vain to get up a man with ruffled blonde hair hanging in front of his face only to collapse back down laying there with blood beginning to spread outwards from underneath them.

(TIME SKIP)

They manage to help the injured person, up the stairs and into one of the offices above the Bar then having enough, flings them onto a sofa hard as they give a muffled groan followed by their hand moving slightly to grip the arm of it, followed by sitting up but keeping their head lowered.

Hair in front of their face, while the large burly man goes over to mini-fridge getting out a bottle of cheap beer and cracking it open then heads back over, holding it out as a fine delicate hand takes hold of it and takes a sip still keeping their head lowered to stare at the sofa arm.

“Alright that’s enough. You had your drink, now beat it. I’ve got no time for a squabbling bitchy faggot who just broke up with their boyfriend.”

The injured person, turns their face still keeping it lowered and soon begins to chuckle lightly, followed by wide **_Joker’s grin_** spreading on their face when they finally left their head to reveal who they are.

“Then you shouldn’t underestimate a ** _Lure_** , than, Drukov.”

Drukov – the owner of the Bar – stares, stumbling backwards shaking his head back and forth trying to deny the sight in front of him of the once person he feared all his life and goes to speak, but never gets a chance do.

The curved Devil’s claw blade, pierces into the fleshy part of his stomach and rips it straight away opening it up so it becomes like a giant maw allowing for torrent of fresh blood to spurt outwards covering the walls, carpet and some of the sofa at the sametime the injured person stands up stepping into the lamp light of the swing bulb above with the sickly thud of entrails falling out.

Hannibal Lecter smirks, showing his **_Predator Teeth_** as he lunges forwards, biting down into the meaty flesh of the neck and tearing hard, severing the large vein in the neck with such force it makes Drukov’s body spasm, uncontrollably falling to the carpet with a muffled thump then finally going still, with only heavy breathing from both living occupants filling the space.

_“How do you feel?”_

_“Euphoric, stimulated and….elated.”_

 

** PART 10 – The Peaceful Morning after Hunting Together Last Night, Having Breakfast in Maryland, Virginia and Sharing Time Together in the Christmas Market, While Eyes Watch One From the Shadows they Hide Within **

** Location – Safe-house near the Rolling Atlantic Ocean **

** Hannibal’s P.O.V:  **

_“How do you feel?”_

_“Euphoric, stimulated and….elated_

Those words repeat in my head, re-echoing and echoing as I lay under the covers of the large king size bed with Will, calmly sleeping next to me with his head resting in the crook of my neck and his hand resting on my chest where my heart is calmly beating each-time – pumping my life-force through my veins – while I rest my chin on top of his head and keep an arm around him so he is close to me feeling comforted by just his presence of being this close to me.

Last night, when we had returned to the Safe-house and after getting ready for bed, we sat on the duvet cover while I watched the ocean glittering in the moonlight and the little fireflies in the garden already dancing. I had laid in his arms – my chest to his back, one leg over one of mine, his hand around my middle and his arm around my shoulder. I had lightly caressed it with my lips and just enjoyed his embrace.

A shift against me, followed by soft “ _Hmmh”_ draws me out of the particular memory of last night then he lifts his head to look down at me, making me look up at him smiling softly at his face.

“Good morning.”

“Morning to you too, Will.”

He reaches to stroke a strand of hair from my forehead, gently tucking it behind my ear and goes to pull his hand away when I grab his wrist to kiss the inside of it with my lips then cup it to my cheek closing my eyes just to relax at the touch of it.

Feeling his thumb stroking my cheekbone lightly and fluttering my eyes open, bring my hand up to pull him down to rest my forehead against his then nuzzle softly, my nose against his affectionally making him kiss me lightly on the lips when my stomach chooses the right time to interrupt the bliss we’re having, shortly followed by his.

“I think we should get something to eat, don’t you think?”

“Hmmh, yes.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** Location – Maryland, Virginia – Mid-Morning **

The drive through the City of Maryland, Virginia brings back memories of the Interviews we had shared and the quiet moments in the Physcharist rooms, which turning my gaze to look out the window soon see **_“FOR SALE”_** sign in the one of the windows of where I once had my patients.

I could easily go back to it. Start over again and take patients in to discuss their problems with me. But, they would soon see through the façade of the lies, I would have to tell to keep myself hidden from them.

“I feel like if Jack discovers you’re alive, I’ll be separated from you again.” I say to Will, who is pulling into small car-park near a Café across from the Art Gallery – which has poster on pole outside, stating they would be hosting artwork done by Leonardo Da Vinci; Vincent Van Gogh and Michelangelo called **_“Into Eternity’s Gate”_** Collection throughout Christmas and leading up to March – and cuts the engine.

“Hannibal, let’s go and get something to eat. I don’t want to talk about the past at the moment.” He replies, unbuckling the seat-belt and reaches over to lightly squeeze my hand with his then both of us get out, stepping into the crisp, morning air as my ears become assaulted with far distant Carol singing; smells of hot food wafting from the large Market stalls of the Christmas market and families with their children walking back and forth enjoying themselves.

Pulling the woolen coat collar tighter around my neck to keep warm, I wait for Will to come around the car and he comes up to me then slips his arm in the crook of mine and taking a deep breath slip my hand out of the pocket to interlace my fingers with his.

He smiles softly at this, while we begin to walk over to the Christmas Market and have a look around like everyone else is doing, feeling calm that he is with me then come to stall with some woodcarvings of small woodland animals, snowflakes and other creative stuff then notice one, which peaks my interest – a Stag, carved with soft feathers on it and such intricate detail I pick it up gently with my free hand to look at the carving.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** The Watcher’s P.O.V: **

They watch from afar at the sight in front of their eyes from the shadow of the alleyway.

The sight of Hannibal Lecter heading to one of the stalls of the Christmas market clasping the hand of the one person, that makes them grip their wrist with faded white plastic tag on it with initials, but too faded to see or make out and find themselves digging their nails into the flesh feeling anger, jealousy and sadness that it ain’t them which the older blonde haired man is holding the hand of.

Why couldn’t it be them instead?

Why?

Why couldn’t they have been the one to be the center of Hannibal Lecter’s affections?

Why not them?

Why that other person….Will Graham, had to be the affection and not them?

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** Meanwhile in the Christmas Market  **

After purchasing the carved Stag, the both of us walk over to one of the many Café’s and step inside the warm exterior heading soon over to the far quiet corner – where we won’t be overheard - to sit down in the leather clad sofa together as I slip the coat off placing it over the armrest then pick up the menu to have a look at hot beverages, snacks and cold drinks.

I order a “ _Chai Latte_ ” and Will, orders “ _Black Forest”_ Mocha along with some Japanese Mochi cakes – made with glutinous rice and red beans – then sits back among the pillows of the leather sofa, waiting for me to say something to him.

“How….did you survive?” I ask him, quietly sitting back among the pillows and turning slightly to face him, while he reaches past me to take what we order from the female waitress then places it down on the coffee table in front of us after they have left.

“I….was picked up by a fishing trawler. They patched me up and I worked on the trawler for the remainder of time with them then went back to your Birthplace. I wander through the many empty rooms, some half-destroyed by ivy growing into the windows then came to one place I felt great sadness.”

I take a sip of the _Chai latte_ to warm myself up and know which room he means then placing it down, pick up the Mochi unwrapping it. Biting it in half, I hold out the other half for him which he takes from my hand.

“The Nursey, where Mischa slepted is one place I cannot step into anymore. It brings back painful memories, Will.” I reply, picking up my drink again and sipping the hot drink.

He nods in reply to this, changing the subject to other things like how the Trawler had traveled around the waters near Scottish coast – some of the roughest parts, where waves rise and crested over the trawler but never once did it get swamped or destroyed by them – where saw the towering mountains of the Island of Skye, other small places untouched by people and many different sea animals on the shorelines.

I listen to him speak, the hint of his original accent coming out and just listen to him telling me that it was never easy – his mind would go back to the **_Night of the Dragon,_** falling off the cliff and being separated so long from….me.

I reach forwards clasping my fingers in his, reaching forwards to go to kiss him and yet, feel to admit embarrassed because were in a public space then his warm lips cover mine gently in soft kiss, surprising me at the action and yet, closing my eyes softly kiss him back gently just for small time.

When I pull back, I see the other Patrons of the Café are looking at us and yet, not with disgust or anything of the nature but happiness in seeing two people – two men – having a nice time together then the owner of the Café, comes over placing down on the coffee table in front of us a bottle of **_Finest 1531 Blanquette de Limoux Brut._**

“On the house. How you’ve been married, Cajun?” He asks Will, who rubs his thumb over my the back of my hand to calm me and my Beloved smiles softly, bringing it up to kiss my knuckles lightly making me blush softly at this affection in public.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** Watcher’s P.O.V: **

They watch from the shadows, feeling like their chest is being pierced by many shards of glass at the sight of seeing both Dr. Hannibal Lecter and the other man – Will Graham – being gifted something by the Café owner then stepping backwards, further into the alleyway feel the anger rising within them.

It should be them. It should be them.

Walking further back into the alleyway, they fully turn and head deep into the shadows which soon swallow them up.

It was time for them to **_Hunt_** again.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 **PART 11 –Saying Goodbye to One’s _Beloved_ when it Comes Time for them to Leave, An Inappropriate Meeting with _“*The Kitsune”_** **who Has Spotted One at the Train Station after One’s Beloved has Left and Walking through the Park where One’s Meets Dr. Ocrates Again Who Reveals Something, But Not All to One**

* _Freddie Lounds_

** Hannibal’s P.O.V: **

_“I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay.”_

_“I know, Hannibal. But, I must leave now. I can’t stay here.”_

_“Back onto the Path for me? Alone, without you there to…comfort me?”_

_“Yes.”_

He pulls back from me, while standing on the Baltimore outdoor Train Station platform with the smoke from the engine filling the cold air with large swathes of whiteness then he cups both my cheeks, kissing me heavily to push me back into alleyway up against the brick wall and it is such a heart-wrenching one because were both separating I feel tears forming my eyes running down my cheeks heavily because I don’t want him to leave.

I manage to keep the whimpering mewls down, followed by pulling back to breathe and he wipes the tears away with both his thumbs then slips away from me, heading to the train door just before it is about to close.

He turns to look out the windows as the doors slide shut with a hiss at me and brings up his hand waving slightly as I smile softly at him doing the same then the steam fully covers the train as it soon goes out of the Train station down the tracks towards the North as I watch it silently standing alone at the train platform.

“Admiring the view, Dr. Lecter?” A voice – a familiar female voice – asks drawing me out of the pleasant haze and turn my face to see it is Freddie Lounds standing there a knapsack over one shoulder very close to me.

“If you consider yourself part of it. Then No is my answer.” I say, not really feeling like talking to her at the moment and walk past her heading out the Train Station towards the park just too fully get away from her.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_“Look just give me one small conversation for Tattlecrime website on this **Fledging Killer.”**_

_“Freddie, I don’t know anything about them.”_

_“Fine, then. What about your companion who was with you today? Who was he? He looked eerily like Will Graham, Hannibal. Even though that man is dead or so some believe. Then of course the rumor spreading about the child of Alana Bloom and Margo Verger is not actually of Verger Line but off a Bastard one.”_

I whirl around to face her, causing her to bump into my chest as she trips over a buried root of a tree in the ground and lifts her head to look up at me then placing both my hands on her arms, push her gently away from me.

“What rumor and when did this start? Why is my…s…Why is the Verger child being considered that?” I ask her, making her look at me when I nearly say the words “ _my son”_ and walk away from her quickly only for her to grab hold me whirling me around to face her.

“Hannibal, did I hear right!!? Are you saying…Morgan Verger, is your son and how is that possible!!?”

I breathe heavily, heart pounding against my ribcage at the words that come from own mouth and wrench free only to stumble backwards into a firm chest from behind then hands take hold of my arms, gripping them tightly making me stiffen. Shuddering slightly, I turn my face to look at Dr. Ocrates, who calmly says something to Freddie Lounds to make her move on.

(TIME SKIP)

_“Just…let me go. Just…don’t.”_

I hear myself pleading, followed by him leading me further into the wooded part of the Baltimore Park where the treeline gets more dense and difficult to see what is further up ahead then he places me up against a large oak tree – which is twisted into a helix shape like one’s DNA and many branches spreading outwards above my head in the canopy.

“Stop that, Hannibal. If I was going to kill you, I wouldn’t… He begins to say, only to grab my clenched fist when go to punch him in the larynx and pushing it back – still gripping it – brings it up above my head pinning it to tree’s bark. “Really, it was good punch. But, I had more training than you.” He continues to speak.

“You…Bastard!!? Why!!!? Why have you…came back to….me!!!?” I shout at him, making him cover my mouth with his gloved hand and opening it, I bite down into hard hearing him grunt and a wince slightly appear on his features as young yobbish voices of teenagers start to fill where they are as I listen and the older man listens intently as well.

Because he is listening, I bite down more deeply only for him to shove his kneecap right between my knees slamming straight into my groin where I soon slide down slightly the tree trunk with my mouth agape at the intense wave of agony shooting through it. He had just kneed me hard and can tears pricking my eyes then the teenagers move onwards, leaving us alone as he slips away from me and takes off his leather glove to inspect his hand which I had sunk my teeth into – inspecting it.

“So, your bite is worse than the bark of that tree you lean against.” Dr. Ocrates says, grabbing hold of me and bending down to my ear soon says a word that makes drags me into my already crumbling **_Memory Palace._**

**_“Lamb”_ **

_\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

** PART 12 – The Journey Back onto the Path Within’s One Mind, Visiting a Friend of One’s Beloved at Port Haven Physcharity Home and Discussing with them about Being Adopted to protect them from Any Further Harm **

** Hannibal’s P.O.V: **

_**Sweet William Petals –** the scent of them fills my nostrils, while some cover my nude body and fluttering my eyes open see the sun is starting to rise turning the sky above my head soft orange, yellow and red then a slithering noise across the petals, which lay all around me reminds me I must get up. _

_I shift under them, getting up noticing some of the petals begin to shift rising up and attach to my body forming a strange petaled toga to cover me then a cry above my head makes me see the **Hawk** hovering way above waiting for me. _

_I start to walk, while a gentle breeze blows the petals away and the scene soon changes to long beach spreading outwards with the waves going and back forth over the shore then come to a sight which makes me still._

_The horse lays on its side not breathing with a blood pool spreading out from beneath from its body and the weeping of the man in front of me wearing a half-torn toga then go up to him, reaching out to softly place my hand on their shoulder making them turn their head to look up at me._

_Suddenly they lunge into my chest, gripping my toga tightly with their hands and burying their face into it as I bring my hand up to cradle the back of their head sifting it through the hair to calm them._

_“Hush now…It’s alright, I’m here.” I whisper soothing their tremors and they pull their face back to look up at me – revealing it is Peter Bernardone, the young man who knows Will._

_“Help me, please?”_

(TIME SKIP)

Those words “ _Help me, please?”_ re-echoes and echoes in my mind as I drive to Port Haven Physcharity Home where last time I had visited had been with Will to visit Abigail – who know was just a fading **_Memory_** in my **_Memory Palace_** – then coming down the well-used driveway park the car in empty spot killing the engine.

I get out, closing the door behind seeing some of the people who stay in this place are in the large garden and locking the car see sitting alone on the bench is Peter Bernardone reading a book quietly then head over to him, seeing snoozing on his lap is a small ochre and snow-white rat.

He lifts his head up from his book to see, who it his and seeing it is me smiles softly trying to convince me that everything is alright – but something about it, tells me something is making him feel frightened – then sit down next to him facing him slightly and he soon turns his face to nuzzle affectionally into my chest inhaling my scent to calm him.

“Tell me? Tell what me has happened, Peter?” I whisper soothingly cupping his chin lightly making him bring his own hand up to hold it close nuzzling his face into it and clasping his fingers in mine.

“I….want you take me away from here.” He replies, while his pet rat waking up clambers into my lap and turning around and around soon settles to sleep once more, with gentle snuffling coming from the small animal.

The thought of to help him as he had asked me in my **_Memory Palace_** on the shores of the strange landscape that was being made within it comes to mind and thinking of what to say next to him then he pulls back slightly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Sorry.”

“Peter, how…would…..you feel if I adopted you? If you came to live with me?”

He lowers his hands, looking at me with wide eyes and suddenly begins to dissociate shuddering slightly as I grab both his cheeks placing my forehead against his then taking a deep breath, begin to sing softly under my breath a lullaby I used to sing to Mischa when she was small child and he relaxes moving to bury his face into the crook of my neck.

_“I want that…very much. Even though, I do not fully know you, Dr. Lecter. I knew Will and…he helped me when there was no-one else. I wish…..he were still alive, so I could talk with him again.”_

_“I know. So, do I, Peter.”_

_\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

** PART 13 – Called to the Second Crime Scene by * _“The One who Wears Guilt Within his Heart, but Does Not Show it”,_ Facing Someone who One had Supposedly killed during the _Night of the Dragon_ at the Crime Scene and The Unexpected Laying with Them, That Makes One Feel they Have Betrayed their Beloved by Doing So and Hearing an Admission from Them **

** *Implies Jack. **

** Warnings – Emotional Angst alert!!!?  **

** Location - Safe-house near the Rolling Atlantic Ocean **

** Hannibal’s P.O.V: **

I’m busy filling in Adoption Papers for Peter Bernardone, while sitting at the round table close to the large windows in the sitting room when my mobile phone starts to vibrate on the wooden surface making me place the fountain nibbed pen down – placing the cap on it – so the ink doesn’t dry out then answer it.

_Yes._

_Hannibal, it’s me, Jack. Need you to come immediately, there’s been another murder and it looks like the one when…well you’ll see when you get here._

_Where?_

_Wolftrap, Virginia. Will’s old home._

_I’ll be right there._

_See you there._

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** Location – Wolftrap, Virginia – Will’s Old Home **

Driving down the road to Will’s house, brings back **_Memories_** of the times I had gone to visit his home – the night when I had sent Randal Tier to kill him for revenge using Matthew Brown to kill me, to frame him and finally bringing him back from Muskrat Farm – then come up to the front of the house, see Jack is waiting for me near the porch steps.

I pull the car up, killing the engine and settling back in the driver’s seat breathe in and out softly to calm my breathing – my pounding heart against my ribcage, until it resumes its normal pace – then sighing softly, step out of the car to head over to him, after closing the car door with one hand.

I walk up to him, allowing him to step to one side and head up the porch steps into the house where ghostly image of **_Imaginary Will_** appears sitting on the disused bed just like when the real Will, had actually sat there and remember the words he had said to me.

**_"_ ** _I'm not going miss you. I'm not...going to look for you. I don't want to think about you anymore"_

The ghostly images waft away, like smoke particles being blown by the wind and the new crime scene is revealed to me – just in the same way I impaled Marissa Schur in the Hunting Lodge that had once belonged to Garret Jacob Hobbs – blood already spread out in huge pool from underneath the body as I handed a pair of blue latex gloves which I slip on.

Heading over, I tilt the head upwards to reveal the young woman’s face and look closely at hair – seeing it is still wet from a shower – then reaching for strand of hair, rub it between my fingertips soon covering the latex in black hair dye.

“Hannibal, any theories?” Jack asks me, making me straighten up and heading over to one of the covered armchairs near fireplace sit down in it clasping my hands over my chest as I cross one leg over the over.

“Give me some time, alone.” I reply, making him go to say something only to decide to head out indicating everyone else to do the same and finally alone, I lean my head backwards on the back of the chair slipping my eyes close.

The golden pendulum swings once, twice and finally a third time coming to halt as I’m pulled into the reconstruction of the Crime.

_Do you see me, Dr. Lecter?_

_This is what you made me do because…of him – that…Will Graham._

_I killed her, made her look like someone you had killed because she was rude to her own Mother. I killed her for you._

_But…you rather pay attention to….him._

_Why?_

_WHY!!!?_

I come out the reconstruction, harshly with myself falling forwards out of the armchair onto the floor on my hands and knees then kneeling back on my haunches, hear a noise which coming from upstairs which makes me lift my head up when a floorboard creaks slightly under someone’s foot.

It seems I wasn’t alone in Will’s old home.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An open window is all to indicate someone has come into Will’s old home – now an active Crime Scene – in the empty quest bedroom, while I stand in the center of the room then keep still, waiting for them to make the first move only instead of making a move – they speak instead.

“Dr. Lecter, do you remember that **_Night_** you will never properly discuss with anyone because you…fear it?”

“Yes. Vividly…Emotionally and….Intimately. You scarred me that **_Night,_** Francis.” I reply, still not turning as he pads up to me and when he grabs hold of me, pulling me flush back against his chest then grabs my throat forcing me to tilt my head upwards at the sametime places one hand on the back of my spine.

“I could…right now, break your spine. Sever your life, Hannibal Lecter.” He whispers, pressing inwards slightly with the hand on my spine to emphasize then continues to speak. “But, there other ways to sate the **_Great Red Dragon_** for now.”

I wrench free of him, stumbling slightly to the windowsill and try to quell the arousal between my thighs then Francis, comes up behind me and turns me to face him followed by grabbing hold of me when my legs give out from underneath me.

I try to keep my eyes open, but it is like a great weight has been placed on them and sink into unconscious state blackness coming into cover my vision like raven wings.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** Location - Safe-house near the Rolling Atlantic Ocean  **

A damp cloth gently dabbing my forehead makes me shift on top of the duvet cover and weakly fluttering my eyes open, tilt my head backwards when it goes to my neck gasping breathlessly before I can stop myself from doing it then it travels downwards at the sametime Francis, unbuttons my shirt one button at a time to fully reveal my chest to him.

He brushes across my nipples, coating them in fine sheen of water and moving it away bends his head down flicking his tongue over the tips of both of them making me arch slightly then slips one hand around to rest his hand on my spine, splaying in certain way and lips trail downwards caressing the scars I have attained.

My hands fist into the duvet cover – unclenching and clenching tightly the fabric – then his tongue licks the outline of the half **_Joker’s Grin_** leading to his scar which he kisses reverently with his warm, moist lips. He travels back up my chest, rolling us so I’m on top of him and pulls me down for a kiss – which I feel myself responding to knowing it is lust rising within me at the sametime guilt I’m betraying Will by doing this is rising as well.

Francis, changes position each time deepening the kiss and fully slipping my shirt off my shoulders so they hang around my elbows then pushing me up, starts to unbutton suit trousers – after pulling the belt off to drop onto the floor – pulling the zip down followed by placing his fingers on the seam of my boxers to slip them down.

He flicks his gaze up to me as he pulls me back down and gulping heavily rest my forehead against his then a thump of my suit trousers, my boxers soon following brings my out of the haze I’m in then scrambling off the bed stumbling backwards shaking my head from side to side.

Francis, looks at me and slips off the bed coming up towards me until my back hits the glass window then he whirls me around so my back is against his chest at the sametime I arch my back slightly giving a hitched gasp when he cups me from behind with lube coated fingers pressing inwards.

“Don’t fight it, Hannibal. Let yourself go…to me.” He whispers, breath hot against my neck and crooks his fingers in a certain way, I place both my hands on the glass to stabilize myself.

He begins to slide them in and out, watching every expression I make – every hitched breathless gasp, the way my hips back and forth into his hand and finally, he moves his hand away when I’m approaching climax – then shoves his hips forwards, cupping my chin to turn my face at the sametime so I look at him.

Lips cover mine, devouring my mouth and a tongue probes within to entwine with my own at the sametime his hands slide down my sides to hold my hips then he begins to undulate his hips back and forth – up and down, sliding himself in and out of me at a certain pace.

(TIME SKIP)

It’s Lust.

Unattainable lust between us, while Francis jolts my body up and down making me ride him in such way on his lap, I push him down covering his eyes with both my hands so he doesn’t look at me then find my body betraying me, my hips moving up and down chasing the heat of the climax that is starting to rise within me.

Moving my hands away, I grab hold of the duvet cover for support fisting my hands into the fabric every inch of my body then a final thrust within me, causes me to tense above him with my thighs clenching around his waist shuddering heavily with a cry echoing in the silence of the bedroom.

I soon collapse in his arms, feeling him roll me onto my back and get more over me then my body tenses again through a second orgasm as he pulls back to look down at me as I do the same to him – seeing the sight of his face and Will’s face blurring.

I turn my face to one side, feeling him stiffen and rush of warmth fill me then he rolls me to one side keeping my thigh all over his waist and holding me close to him as the aftershocks of the orgasm continue to go through me then slump in his arms, sweat that had covered my body running down it in droplets – like rain going down the window – and my chest rising and falling with each labored breath I take.

“Tell me, how you feel?” Francis asks me, stroking a strand of slightly damp hair from forehead and moving away lay on my back then answer him.

“This….wasn‘t meant to happen between us. This wasn’t meant to happen.” I reply, rolling to lay with my back to him. “I need…you to leave now.”

His hand touches my hip, rubbing circles in it to soothe me then bends his lips down to my ear, inhaling deeply followed by something wet plip onto my cheek.

_“I’ll leave. But you should know, if you continue doing what you’re doing then be prepared for some **Truth’s** about you…your family, Dr. Ocrates and your **Beloved** coming to light. I only did this because…that **Night,** the **Dragon** wanted you and yet your **Ravenstag** laid his claim on you.”_

_“You fall in love with me?”_

_“Yes.”_

_\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

** PART 14 - Getting back onto the Path of One’s Beloved’s Inferno Path as Events which Begin to happen when Truths come out to Light, The First Interview with “ _The Iron Maiden_ ” and A Night-time Visit from the “ _Old Serpent”_ and Asking them to Tell them the Truth About Themselves which they Reveal Which Affects One **

** Hannibal’s P.O.V: **

The bodies of the victims from “ ** _La Morte’s Shadow”_** lay on two separate morgue tables when I come into the large Morgue area remembering the last time I had been in here it been to see the fake dead body of Freddie Lounds which Will and Jack had used to lure me in.

The young woman’s body has been washed, fingernails checked for any DNA and other particles that may reveal who this **_“Fledging Killer”_** is and why they were eerily copying my old Crimes then look at the over body of the one from the field Kabuki then go over to the table where the notes from both bodies are laying.

I place them side by side to look at the handwriting, studying the loops and swirls – the way the hand has written it – then getting a sheet of paper, take out the fountain pen writing out the words on the two sheets of paper and compare my sample of handwriting to them.

“The same. Same penmanship like yours.” Jack says, behind me and gulping down saliva stand up straight then wrap my arms around myself, gripping them tightly with both hands.

“Jack, whatever happens over the next few days, mouths or even years you have to understand any information that comes to light…..about me or even my family. Ignore it, please?” I say, going to walk away when suddenly he grabs my arm tightly with his own.

“Ignore it!!!? Ignore!!!?” He begins to start, soon turning me to face him and gripping both my arms slams me up against the glass windows causing them to vibrate. “How can I ignore what is happening. How can I ignore, you lied to me. I know he’s alive, Hannibal. I know Will is alive.”

I lift my head up to look at him, with widened eyes at the fact he has known all this time and move away from him when he lets go my arms walking out into the long corridor where I come to stop as Alana appears stepping forwards in front of me.

“Hannibal, can we talk in private?” She asks me, making me nod silently in reply and she indicates for me to follow her.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“ _Do you remember the last time you were here, Hannibal in this room?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Will you answer my questions now?”_

_“I…have no choice. You would find out later or sooner.”_

Were in my old working office, with the black leather chairs uncovered as she sits from across me in one of them and I, in the other chair then a poem starts to fill my head.

_Tyger Tyger. Burning bright_

_In the forest of the night._

_What immortal hand or eye_

_Could frame thy fearful symmetry_

“How would you like me to begin?” I ask her, making her lower the glass of wine down onto the small side table and indicates for me to start telling her right from the beginning. “It all started in my birthplace - _Aukstaitija, Lithuania –_ where…..”

(TIME SKIP)

_“….Mischa, loved the color purple. And during the middle of the day, Mischa’s nurse carried the beaten copper tub into the kitchen garden to warm the bathwater in the sun. I remember her sitting there among the gleaming tub, among the vegetables in the warm sun with….white cabbage butterflies flying around her.”_

_“Anything else?”_

_“Her placing her hands flat on my cheeks and laughing in my face. She was so young, so innocent and so full of life. That is all for now. I need to go.”_

Alana, lifts her head from writing notes down into the file notepad in her lap as I stand up, taking the woolen coat off the back of the chair to slip it on then notice she is looking at me – or more particularly the coat.

“Yes, it’s is. It belonged to him.” I reply, heading to the door and wonder if I should ask her about little Morgan – mine and Will’s little one – then opening the door step out into the main foyer as she closes the door.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Music softly plays, while I read once more over the adoption papers for Peter Bernardone at the sametime sipping the glass of blood orange and passion fruit then a shadow covers the light coming from the soft lamp light followed by a chair being pulled back.

“Adoption? Your feeling paternal, Hannibal?” Dr. Ocrates asks me, pouring himself a glass of the blood orange and passion fruit then getting out the chair, pick up the papers and place them back in the envelope.

“Are you hungry? I’m going to make some asparagus, pea and mint risotto for dinner.” I ask him, not answering his question and head into kitchen to make the meal.

“I’ll give you some help.” He replies, getting up and coming up to me, placing his hand on my shoulder to squeeze it lightly. “I’ll be sous chef, shall I?”

(TIME SKIP)

“Gently. Let me help you.” Dr. Ocrates says, taking hold of my hand as blood starts to plip onto the kitchen floor and helps me over to where the medical kit is, calmly opening it to get out some alcoholic wipes.

He opens one of the packets, unfolding the alcoholic wipe and holding my hand places it over the cut causing me to wince with slight hiss coming through my teeth at the harsh sting then allow him to wrap a bandage around the cut in the palm of my hand and taking a deep breath decide to ask him.

“I…want the truth. Who are you really? Why are you like this to me?” I ask, making him still in doing what he is doing to my hand and moves his hand to stroke a strand of hair from my forehead then gives a weak smile.

“You’re so like your mother. She loved you very deeply – your sister and yourself. But I was only a butler and you were considered by the other servants frightening when you were a child. I remember when she gave birth to you, brought you into the world and….”

He stops talking, looking at me with moistened eyes and continues to speak, causing me to step away shaking my head side to side, trying to deny what he saying to me then whimpering slide down the kitchen wall, starting to cry heavily as he comes up to me and pulls me into a hug as I bury my face into his chest.

“I’m sorry. So, sorry……”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** PART 15 – Journey back into One’s Crumbling _Memory Palace,_ The Quiet of the Stream and Remembering as One Sketches Quietly about what the “ _Old Serpent”_ Had Told One the Night and Meeting One’s Beloved at the Same Stream  **

** Location - Safe-house near the Rolling Atlantic Ocean **

****

“ _I’m so sorry. So, sorry…for what happens next. **Lamb**.”_

_Those words echo and re-echo around the underground Temple of the God Vulcan, feeling my ears as I struggle to breathe, the clawed hand tightening around my throat as “ **The Ochre Wendigo”** leans over my body covered by the **Sweet William** toga and digs its other clawed hand into the wound in my chest slipping between my ribs upwards until I’m shuddering heavily. _

_My head tilting backwards, feeling it calmly slip my heart out from the wound still beating and allows me to fall backwards among the large bed of Oleander, Narcissus and Deadly Nightshade petals which explode upwards into the air along with the pool of water from the circular shallow pool._

_My head lolls to one side in the water, half-submerged and see the creature **“The Ravenstag”** come towards the **“The Wendigo”** who calmly holding my heart in both hands as flames appear starting to burn it as unknown voice whispers in my ear._

_“ **No-one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. By that love, we see potential in our beloved. Through that love, we allow our beloved to see their potential.**_

**_Expressing that love, our beloved’s potential comes true.”_ **

_Then clawed hands reach underneath my body pulling me out of the water, cradling me like a newborn child and one clawed hand turns my face into its chest then my eyes slip close, while I feel myself being gently carried away softly in the arms of the creature – my creature._

_The both of us soon being swallowed up the darkness of the arch, which is blocked by vines growing upwards forming a shape within them of a Chinese dragon with its tail twisting, while it swallows a man._

_\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

** Location – Stream near Will’s Old Home  **

The river just near Will’s house, shimmers in the sunlight when I step out of the treeline and stand there listening to the stream running through the small boulders, pebbles and silt then heading over to large weeping willow, sitting down against it unbutton the white crème waistcoat.

Slipping the satchel off, I take out the sketchpad and pencils then opening the sketchpad to a fresh sheet, calmly begin to sketch what is in front of me knowing that some point I will have to catch “ ** _La Morte’s Shadow_** ” before… _No, I shouldn’t be thinking about that piece of information that Dr. Ocrates told me that night. I should be more concerned about…the other information he told me._

Everything he had said to me that night, the truth which had hurt and affected me deeply then pausing in the sketching, lift my head up when I sense only one person who makes my heart-rate speed up slightly and turning my face, smile up at him.

“Hello, Will.” I say, making him give a small “ _Hmm_ ” and place his tackle box next to me then head down to wade into the stream as I go back to sketching quietly, adding him to the scene of it – the arc of the silver fishing line glinting in the sunlight, the way he is standing and the river flowing past him.

Maybe he has seen by looking at me, I laid with someone else and will not talk to me because of it.

Does he know the “ ** _Great Red Dragon”_** is alive? Does he know that Francis Dolerhyde is the one, I had laid with or more accurately to his mind allowed to fuck me?

“Are we going to talk about it? Don’t think I don’t know what has happened between you and….Francis Dolerhyde.”

Lifting my head, I place the sketching to one side and look at him, to ascertain his body language to tell whether he is angry at me for what had happened then seeing there is no point in lying to him.

“It….just happened between us. But I…felt like I was betraying you, while it happened.” I reply, picking up the sketching pad to finish of the drawing and he resumes waiting for the fish to tug on the line.

“Betrayal is something akin to Love. There is the Betrayed and the Betrayer.” He says, quoting Bedelia when she said those words to me in the Florentine Apartment and getting up, I step closer to the bank then bending down slightly, unlace my shoes followed by placing them to one side.

Stepping into the stream, I wade behind him and slipping my arms around his waist, hold him close to me then he half turns, placing the fishing rod in my hand.

“Will, I….never done this before.” I admit to him, making him slip around to go behind me and soon feel his arms wrap around me from behind then he places his hands over mine, starting to move them.

“I’m not angry with you. Things like sleeping with someone else happen, Hannibal.” He says, while I go to say something back only for him to place a finger to my lips “ _Shhing_ ” me and continue to speak. “Hush, don’t speak. Concentrate on the rod, Hannibal.”

Quietly, I allow him to move my hands like it is almost a dance between us and when the line goes taught, he helps me reel in the fish on the other end attached to the hook.

The silver scales of it glinting in the sunlight, along with the droplets of water flying in the air.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** PART 16 – Embrace in One’s Beloved Arms Once More, A *Slimy Pig is slaughtered and Disposed of and *“ _Gentle One”_ is taken Away from the Place to Save them from Harm **

_*Tall golden structure – Trying to figure out from the first episode of Season 3 what it is. It is the Eiffel Tower or another Tower in Florence, Italy._

_* **Gentle One** – Refers to Peter Bernardone _

** Location - Safe-house near the Rolling Atlantic Ocean **

** Hannibal’s P.O.V: **

The knife gleams in the dimmed kitchen life, making me take a deep breath as I take out of the knife block and placing the live fish place it on the chopping then Will, comes into the kitchen seeing how I’m standing there with fish on the chopping board wriggling in death throes.

He comes over, slipping behind me and places his hand over the one holding the knife then grabs hold of me, when my legs choose to give out on me and lowers me to the polished floor.

Turning my face, I go to say something when the flopping fish in its final death throe chooses to land right in my lap on top of my groin making us both soon laugh at it then he hauls me up, placing the fish back on the chopping board along with the knife.

“Uhh…let’s eat in the town. There is sushi restaurant just opened that I like to try or we could just go to bed, if you want?” He asks me, while I do feel tired and taking hold of his hand leading him out the kitchen – after washing my hands of the fish smell – through the sitting room into the bedroom where calmly he takes hold of me soon kissing me breathlessly.

Both of us, change position each-time to deepen it and the desire to make love between us rising, I begin to peel of his clothes at the sametime he does the same to me feeling him push me backwards until he pushes me down onto the bed covers.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The morning sun filters through a gap in the curtains of the bedroom, while Will allows me to cradle the back of his head as I gently push my hips forwards feeling my eyelids flutter slightly with him wrapping his legs around me, when I finally become fully sheathed within him then wetting my lips, start to gently and slowly undulate my hips back and forth into his.

Each rise.

Each fall.

The way both of us move in sync with each-other.

His hands come up, rolling us so he is straddling me and placing his hands on my chest then begins to lift his hips up and down, making me tilt my head backwards on the pillow too gasp breathlessly at the feeling of slipping in and out of him with each thrust.

Sweat that is coating both run downs them like rain droplets, followed by me spreading my legs more wider apart starting to grunt heavily with the effort then rise up to hold him close to me, resting my forehead against his, feeling him sift his hand through my hair and the other hold my shoulder.

“Are you close, Hannibal?” He pants heavily in my ear, clenching his thighs in such a way it makes me arch slightly with tremors running my thighs and snarling flip him onto his back getting over him.

I look down at him, increasing my thrusts within him and when the pressure finally hits, give a breathless moan “ _Will”_ of his name with my back arching slightly then muscles tensing, release slowly into him it feels euphoric and….one could say heavenly.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** Location - Port Haven Physcharity Home **

*Dr. Druden Hall – is the most unpleasant man of the Physcharity Department for Port Haven, that I ever met – and takes the Adoption forms in the envelope to just place it down on his desk like it was nothing to him then sits down in the chair, looking at me as I calmly sit in the visitor’s chair.

“I heard of you, Dr. Hannibal….Actually, No…Correct myself. Former Dr. Hannibal Lecter, ever since you lost your practice by being find out to…have **_problems.”_** He says, hissing out that word as I manage to resist the urge to get up and grab his flabby neck with one hand at the sametime stabbing the neat ornate letter opening into the side of his jugular so bleeds to death on his horrible study ornate cheap tacky carpet.

“And what… ** _problems,_** would that be…Dr. Druden Hall?” I ask him, hissing the word back at him and the man opens a draw getting out remote then clicking a button at the wall, allows it to reveal a screen which flicks on to reveal the beginning of video showing me coming out of my house the night I had killed Abigail because I had felt so betrayed by Will for deceiving me and presses play restarting it from the beginning.

_I feel empty inside, like my heart has been shattered into million pieces as Will, slumps against the fridge holding his hand to wound I have just made with the curved knife and gulping weakly find myself speaking before I even think of why I’m just causing the both of us more pain. More hurt._

_“I let you in. I let you know me. See me.”_

_His eyes – sea blue-green looking straight into mine spearing me with their gaze to hurt me, making me feel ashamed for what I just did to him and how I held him in my embrace. Hiding the curved knife._

_“My freedom then. You would take that from me? Confine me to prison cell.”_

_“No, no...”_

_Did you believe you could change me, the way I’ve changed you?”_

_He lifts his head up to look at me, body still shuddering through the throes of trying to survive losing blood which is starting to spread across the polished floor and answers me with such reply it causes my heart to skip a double beat at it._

_“I already did.”_

_I say other things, anything to change or even not remember what he had just said._

_“I gave you a rare gift. But you didn’t want it, Will.”_

_“Didn’t I?”_

_Also hearing my voice disembodied when I finally call Abigail over as I hold my free hand out to her and she comes up to me, while I soon pull her flush against me then holding the collar of her coat with one hand, bring the curved knife up to her pale throat placing the tip right up against the same scar where her Father had cut her and keeping my face neutral as I look at Will, who is begging me not to do it sever her throat in one fluid motion._

_Lowering her body to ground, I allow her to fall on her back making Will look at me in shock, horror and anguish written on his face and stepping close to him lean down so were eye level, feeling so weak and numb within myself._

_“Put your head back and wade quietly into the stream. Forget about all of this.”_

_Walking away from him, I pass the wine cellar with Jack within and placing my hand on the door lightly whisper the words to him “I’m sorry, Jack. Sorry for everything.” Then head down the corridor into the foyer and soon step out onto the porch into the rain tilting my head backwards as I bring one hand up to drag down my face. Alana, sweet innocent if she had been blind towards me lays on the front porch – her spine shattered by the fall and yet still alive – with Will’s coat over her, which makes me lean down taking it off her shivering body and listen to her gaping trying to form words to say to me._

_Nothing comes out._

_Stepping onto the main pavement, when coming out the gate I slip Will’s coat on pulling it tight around my body and start to walk down the road towards somewhere far away from where I have left three people – but only one has broken my heart with **betrayal.**_

 

The video ends, fading to black and my whole body feels numb at the fact that someone had been paid either by this slimy pig to install hidden cameras in my house without my knowledge then another video starts this time showing where I had been in Florence after leaving Will behind in Baltimore, Maryland.

_A key inserted into a lock, turns and the engine of the motorbike powers to life with the pistons moving up and down within its innards then getting onto the bike, the person in black leather starts the engine – kicking it to life._

_They speed down the road, weaving to and through the cars, tightening black leather clad gloves on the handles increasing the throttle of the sleek motorbike, while in the far distance a *tall golden structure  shines a light from it – like a lighthouse, spreading it’s light into the dark so ships can see where they are going._

_Down a hill on a curving road, passing tall classical buildings and continuing to weave through the late night-time traffic to the destination then passing statues hiding in the street light shadows and continuing on, passing a grand pillar façade of white polished stone proud in the night-light as the bike speeds to its destination._

_Multiple arches leading forward as the bike slows down to park as the driver drops his foot down to the wet surface of the road. Hands reach upwards to remove the black helmet. The biker looks upwards towards the building. Observing. Thinking._

**_Prey_ ** _. Weak, minded and no idea there will soon be a **Hunter** among them. _

_Coming to the open doorway, where within the large ornate function suite, I see many people chatting, drinking and milling slowly around the step within, walking among them taking a champagne flute from one of the tray’s being held by a waiter._

_Looking around, I do not see the intended **Prey** just yet. Meaning they must be in the other function suite next door and opportunity arises when a one of the staff opens a glass golden glided door with diamond lattice shapes on it._

_I step into the other room, seeing it is fuller of **Prey,** mingling among themselves and begin to walk among them slipping silently among them as I soon spot my intended **Prey.**_

_Hidden in the back, talking to small group of people who listening and nodding their heads when he says something to them. Though I’m too far away to hear it._

_It is the sametime, I’m watching them, I sense I’m being watched by someone else in the room and lowering my head turn my gaze to see a young man – no doubt 37 years old – slicked back hair, wearing a scarf around his neck and holding two champagne flutes._

_“Anthony Dimmond.”_

_“Boris Yorkoff.”_

 

“Stop, that’s enough.” I say, getting up out the chair and going over to him at the sametime another video – the final one – starts to play, making me tense when I hear Will speaking on it and turning my head see it is in Bedelia’s Psychiatric Office.

_“Is Hannibal in….love with me?”_

_“Could he feel a daily stab of hunger for you and find nourishment at the very sight of you. Yes.”_

_“Why won’t he tell me himself?”_

_“I think you already know the answer to that, Mr. Graham.”_

_“Because he wants me to have nothing in my life, that ins’t him. He wants to be with me. He wants…me to embrace a part of myself I’m trying so hard to ignore within me. He wants me….to love him back.”_

_“You said I’m Bluebeard’s Wife. What does that make you?”_

_“I don’t…..know. What does the word….. **Myilamis** mean?”_

_“Hmm, I’m surprised he used that word to describe you. It means in his birth language **Beloved.** You are his **Beloved.** The wounded **Beloved,** who ate his burning heart when you betrayed him.”_

_“Can…I save myself?”_

_“Can you save yourself? I say, can you save this Hannibal you know now or will **Fate** intervene again like before?”_

_“Only God knows the answer to that.”_

_“Hannibal doesn’t believe in God.”_

_“No, he doesn’t. And neither do I have any belief.”_

The conservation finishes, screen fading to black and the wooden panel coming back up to cover it as Dr. Druden Hall, puts the remote back into the drawer of his desk then picks the envelope with the Adoption Papers for Peter, opening them to start looking at them.

“I will not sign these. And you have to understand, I was sent those videos by anonymous source and told through a letter to show them to you. The final video it….well it definitely highlights your…pro!!?” He begins to say, only to never finish the sentence as I stab the ornate letter opener into the side of his jugular and pressing it more deeply in feel some blood spurt onto my cheek.

I don’t flinch at this. His eyes look at me, widened in horror, shock and surprise at the sametime I stab the fountain pen nib into the hollow of his throat piercing the flesh of it at the sametime blood lightly spurts onto his desk in fine mist of crimson petals.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peter, is in the garden sitting on the same bench where I had first met him and he soon lifts his head up from the book he is reading then gets up, burying himself into my chest as I bring my hands up to hold him.

Cradling the back of his head, I sift a hand through his hair to calm him and picking up his book allow him to lead me through the wooded area of the large garden to certain spot where I see a tiny hut made of sticks, stones and other natural materials where lying within is tiny little baby hedgehog laying sleeping curled up with the tamed rat.

“Can I…bring them with me?” He asks me, wringing his hands in his jumper and smile softly at him, nodding in reply.

**(TIME SKIP)**

** Location - ** **Safe-house near the Rolling Atlantic Ocean**

I allow Peter to choose a spot in the garden to place the animal house for the hedgehog to stay nice and warm on his own. But keeping close by to him, while the tamed rat has chosen conveniently to stay in his jumper and gets up, coming to stand next to me after feeding the little one.

The spot is close to the guest bedroom, which will allow him to come out to check each time to see how it is doing, coping with its new home. He looks at me, smiling softly and steps close resting the side of his cheek against my chest.

“Thank you for…taking me away from that place.”

“That’s alright, Peter. Everyone needs a second chance in life.”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** PART 17 – Finding it Difficult to Discuss about Luring the “ _La Morte’s Shadow_ ” out from the Shadows they Hide Within with “ _The One who Wears Guilt Within his Heart, but Does Not Show it_ , Giving a Lift to “* _Iron Maiden’s”_ Wife and One’s Little One, While also Meeting a man called Krendler who at the Sametime Has Been Watching One’s Movements like when a Hunter Stalks a Deer  **

**_*Iron Maiden – refers to Alana Bloom_ **

** Location – Baltimore, Maryland – F.B.I. Behavioral and Science Unit Headquarters **

** Hannibal’s P.O.V: **

Jack, is sitting at his large desk busy looking over some Case file notes when I step into his office, closing the door quietly behind to mute out the filtering sound of people in the corridor and walk up to one of the visitors chair sitting down in it.

“I feel like I’m going to put a bell on you, so I know it’s you, Hannibal.” He says, not lifting his head from the papers he holds in his hands and I give a soft smile at this joke, followed by getting out the coffee flask from the knapsack I’ve brought with me.

“Jack, there is something we need to discuss.” I say, pouring myself some coffee and he lowers the papers down onto his desk, lifting his head to look at me.

“If I remember last time, luring out the killer didn’t work. You of course being the killer at the time.” He says, forcing me to cough harshly when I take a sip of the hot coffee feeling it burn my throat slightly and sighing place the cup down on the desk.

“That was the past. This is the Present. If this “ ** _Fledging Killer_** ” continues Jack, more victims appear than you know what will happen.” I say, sitting back to cross one leg over the other and remembering the time when Will, had been sitting in the empty seat next to me.

_The board, has a map pinned up on it showing the victims of this killer that Jack Crawford was hunting for is shows me this other serial killer had been choosing females that meant something to him._

_“How many victims?”_

_Jack replies to this, followed by the young man I believe is called Will Graham saying the word “Tasteless” in response to a Tattlecrime article that had been written by Freddie Lounds._

Coming out of the memory, I open my mouth to speak when I find no words come out. Just a click in the throat, forcing me to decide it is time I left if there were no point in discussing with luring this killer out of the shadows then uncrossing my legs place the coffee flask away in the knapsack.

Getting out the chair, I head to the door when Jack stops me by saying something just as I place my hand on the door handle, making me turn my face to look back at him.

_“Before you go, Hannibal. Did you know a bar Owner called Drukov and Dr. Druden Hall?”_

_“No. Why?”_

_“Just asking that’s all._

_Though, are you pretty sure you don’t know them.”_

_“Utterly sure, Jack. I would remember if I did.”_

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** Location -  ** ** Levestien Private School – Maryland, Virginia  **

Margo Verger, is coming out of the school gates when I step out of my car which I’ve parked across from them with little Morgan, holding her hand and chatting excitingly about his day at school then his gaze soon lands on me, making me softly smile when he points and smiles soon pulling her over across the road to me.

“Hey, wee one.” I say, feeling him soon hug me around the legs and looking down at him bring a hand up to ruffle his hair affectionally and pulls back slightly to look up at me. “Margo, would you like a lift?” I ask her, seeing she is looking around like she doesn’t want to hang around this area for too long.

_What she so afraid of? She acting skittish like when a doe senses danger and can’t tell where it is coming from?_

_Could someone be watching her? Or me for that matter?_

“If you don’t mind. My wife, is busy…sorting out business deals at the moment and doesn’t have time to collect me and Morgan.” She replies, heading around my car and getting in the passenger seat while I open the back passenger door for the little one – my son – handing him his school bag which he takes off me, only to frown when I notice he is looking beyond me at something.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him, quietly turning my face to look at what he is looking at and stand up straight, seeing standing near his own car, is one of the jury members from when I had been in Court – Paul Krendler.

His gaze, makes me stand up straighter lowering my face to stare at him showing I will not be intimidated by being watched in such a callous way and he gives a smirk, taking the cigarette out his mouth turning his face to one side to blow smoke up into the cold, misty air allowing it to wisp and spread outwards until disappaiting. He drops it to the ground, crushing it with the heel of his leather black shoe.

He walks over to me. Hunter’s gait, slow and methodical meaning he was planning something or he had planned something and now was deciding to execute it then stops right in front of me, filling my nostrils with the acrid scent of course tobacco cigarette smoke and cheap cologne.

“Well, well. Didn’t expect to see you in this part of town, Dr. Lecter. Picking up **_family_** are we?” He asks me, saying that bit almost sarcastically and resist the urge to snarl at this man, while opening the driver’s door to get in.

“I could almost say the same thing, Krendler. Though, if you excuse me, I have a more pressing matter at hand somewhere else than wasting my time talking to you.” I reply, making him flick his gaze to little Morgan – who hunkers down into the seat trying to hide himself – and Margo, who is keeping her face turned to one side.

“Sure you do.” He says, causing me to close the driver’s door and close it, stepping soon close to him at the sametime he looks at me still smirking that smug grin – that one day I will wipe of his face – and bends down to whisper quietly enough in my ear son only I can hear, something which makes me quickly flinch away from him.

“ _Plus, I bet you look good…with your legs spread wide, flushed and wanton with debauched look to you as you’re pounded into by a large, thick cock. Who knew…Dr. Hannibal Lecter, would enjoy it and I’ve seen…the video showing you being taken. You’re a little cock-slut ain’t you, sweetcheeks?”_

He pulls back, still smirking at managing to have shaken me with the information and walks off leaving me alone standing next to my car willing my heart to stop thudding against my ribcage.

Paul Krendler, had now bumped his way up my list of people to get rid to the very top and getting into the car, start the engine then pull out from where I parked, not hanging around any longer for him to say anything else.

 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** PART 18 – Standing under the Pale Moonlight Under the Canopy of a Forest of the Night **

** Location – Forest near Wolftrap – Night **

** Hannibal’s P.O.V: **

I listen quietly to the night-life – the hoot of barn owl, followed by it gliding past silently with white wings spread outwards heading over across the snow towards the abandoned barns in the far distance. In the darkness of the hollow of the large tree, I step out, seeing the moon is shining through the canopy of trees and bringing one hand up to the light shining down – like when I been standing in the glass prison at B.S.H.C.I when Will, had been discussing Francis Dolerhyde.

 

**TO BE CONTINUED**


End file.
